


Nine Lives

by Beshter



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Ninth Doctor Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-07-27 01:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 39
Words: 72,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7598503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beshter/pseuds/Beshter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor was doing well all by himself, thank you very much! And in popped this pink and yellow human mucking about the place. Worse, she seems to worm herself into the Doctor's lonely existence rather comfortably...perhaps too comfortably. Character study of Nine and his relationship to Rose Tyler.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Little Fire Between Friends

**Author's Note:**

> (Cross-posted from another archive by the author.)
> 
> At my heart, I'm a Ten sort of girl. But there is something about Nine that made it so easy and lovely to get into his head. I love him a lot, and he's third on my list, (Four, as my first, Ten, as my favorite, and then Nine). He made me fall in love with the Doctor again.

Bugger all if his shoulder didn't hurt.

The doors of the TARDIS slammed shut behind him as he practically fell inside, his key still clutched against his frantically beating hearts. Not the first close shave he'd had in his exceedingly long life, but certainly one of the nearest. He could practically feel the razor burn as he stumbled up off the metal grating, his leather boots digging as he threw himself towards the console.

"Got to get us out of here, old girl, before they start bringing out the torches and pitchforks." He muttered more to himself than the ship; though he could sense the presence of the TARDIS grow alarmed, not just at the growing crowd of agitated townsfolk preparing to beat down her door, but at the battered state of her owner, looking as if he had barely made it out of a nice burning at the stake.

Which of course is exactly what had happened, he informed her quietly, and no he didn't wish to discuss it.

"All my fault, really," he muttered. "I should have caught on that they would have reacted that way the minute they dropped the word 'witch'." How was he supposed to know that the peaceful planet of Paceium was in fact a backwoods little hellhole where a sonic screwdriver would cause a riot? Even as he glanced at the screen to the view outside, he could see the crowds gathering, shouting epitaphs in their native tongue basically to the effect that he was a demon sent by the gods to corrupt them with magic.

"Right, well, so much for living the life of adventure," he sighed, jamming coordinates in to somewhere, anywhere, he didn't care where, as long as it wasn't where he and the TARDIS were sitting right at that moment. Already he could hear the ominous sounds of breaking branches and a quick check on the view outside confirmed his suspicion. They were dragging trees over, whether to batter down the door or try to carry him off, he didn't know. He doubted they could get through the force field, but tipping over the TARDIS…that they might just do.

"Think you can get us out of here," he whispered, pulling levers and jamming buttons as the all too familiar, whining, grinding sound of his ancient machine coming to life filled the console room. Outside the milling crowd stopped and began screaming, horrified by the flashing blue light and the strange, deafening noise. He chuckled, as before their eyes his blue police box seemed to melt into nothingness.

"Right," he finally breathed as around him the TARDIS hummed with the sound of the Vortex. It took the edge off of his frantic energy as he found himself dropping heavily into the jump seat nearby, his shoulder aching with the impact. He reached long fingers to massage it under his leather coat, which of course now smelled liked burnt and singed Time Lord. Gah!

Another lovely day, the Doctor thought to himself dryly, resting his head back as he grimaced at the pain. He'd had to dislocate his shoulder just to get it around enough to wiggle his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. That had been the worst bit, trying to manage that as the flames of the fire roared to life around him, the cheers of the Paceiumi ringing into the night as they tried to burn out their much-feared "witch". Really, he couldn't fault them for their reaction, when he thought about it. He doubted the purple-skinned creatures had ever seen anything more advanced that a mortar and pestle in their civilization. And here he was, the great and mighty Time Lord, showing up with a flying hut and holding light in the palm of his hand. He hadn't been thinking, really, he'd just wanted to go there to check out a bit of the local culture, to go to a place that was quiet and peaceful, without any technology that was blowing up or people that needed saving. That was what he got for thinking that even a renegade Time Lord could ever have a moment's quiet to himself.

The TARDIS tried to hum sympathetically, but really he wasn't in the mood.

"Not now," he sighed, feeling the joint of his shoulder pop back into place as he shifted it, the muscles aching as they relaxed into their proper position. Since his regeneration into this hard, angular, angry form, his ship had felt the need to mollycoddle him. And he usually wasn't up for it.

"Take us somewhere, anywhere, I don't care." He waved a hand in the general direction of the console. He thought for a moment. "Someplace a little less primitive. But nothing too advanced, I'm not fit for that." Frankly he had no idea what he was in the mood for. All he knew was that he wanted to be…somewhere. He needed to feel a world beneath his feet, to feel people around him, to feel life.

Something to fill this cold void inside.

The TARDIS hummed and whined, her engines groaning as she shifted course in time and space, and the Doctor closed his eyes, allowing his ship to do the choosing. Really, what was the purpose of having an aware ship if it couldn't make the decisions for him once in a while? He was tired of making choices, of having to consider and weigh the options. Which would be the lesser evil, a balmy place or a cold one, pasta or curry, beer or wine, let everyone and everything he had ever known die or let the universe crumble into chaos and extinction.

Running, running, catch me if you can. He was always running, trying to outrun those decisions, those consequences, and those painful memories. He had no home, he had no people, and he had no establishment to rebel against anymore. Funny how he had spent so much of his life running from something and now that it was all gone he couldn't seem to make himself stop.

Stop! That was what the engines did as his eyes popped open to the suddenly silent TARDIS, feeling that the ship had physically come to a standstill, even if the world in which she had landed on had not. He leaned curiously forward to glance at the readouts as to where they were, wondering just where the old girl had decided to deposit them.

"Earth? Again?" He tapped at the screen just to make sure it was right. "Twenty first century, eh? What's so interesting about all of that?"

Of course the TARDIS couldn't directly respond, but his screen did flash, symbols from a now long-dead language scrolling across it rapidly.

"You're kidding?" Well that was a surprise. "How did the Nestene Consciousness end up here again? I thought we had managed to get them all the last time."

Clearly they hadn't, as the TARDIS readings indicated that there they were somewhere in London. Well, he hadn't dealt with Autons or the Nestene in a while, it was certainly better than being tied up and roasted like a suckling pig.

"Right, we got any anti-plastic about," he wondered as he tried to recall where he had put it last.


	2. New Faces and Old Enemies

Of course the chief electrician was dead, poor sot. The Doctor grimaced as he bent over the human; middle aged, overweight, the sort of regular man who came to work at his silly department store, just figuring he would keep the lights on and the elevators running and not be bothered. Likely had a wife somewhere, maybe a kid or two, and a liking for too much beer and football down at the pub. The sort that didn't go to work and expect he'd have his head mashed in by a faceless mannequin.

Why this store, though, and why this electrician? Henrik's was one of those annoying shops that catered to the younger set, the sort of twenty-first century Earth fashion that made the Doctor wonder if they wearer meant to look as if they had just rolled out of bed in whatever they had fallen into in. The idea of paying seventy-five quid for a raggedy hoody? Fashion sensibilities aside, this Henrik's store had a lot of things going for it that the Nestene could use to their advantage. It was an old building, lot of metal girders, great for picking up signals. Mannequins galore, enough to get a small army together, a faceless, expressionless militia of tattily dressed thugs to wander the city. And that was the last key to why this location. Right in the heart of one of London's shopping districts, the perfect place to launch an Auton attack if the Nestene wanted.

In the floors up above he could hear the sounds of the store winding down, the announcement over the loudspeakers the store was closing. Good, the place would clear out. That was convenient. He patted the device deep in his giant leather coat pockets. If he could strategically place this up on the roof it would cut the signal for this block at least. Dangerous, yes, and certainly destructive, but far better than allowing an Auton army to rampage through the streets of London. Besides it would buy him time to find the Consciousness itself. All he had to do was wait for the customers and staff to clear, do a final sweep through the building to rid it of any security lingering about, and jump back into the TARDIS and be on his way. Simple as that.

With all of his nine hundred years of experience he should have known it would never be that easy. Above the floors that housed the store was office space, mostly professionals, doctors, lawyers, a dentist, all closed by the time he had wandered down to the basement to find the chief electrician. He had taken off to check out the roof access, ears pitched to listen for the last employees to file out before he made his way upstairs. The door to the stairwell was locked, unsurprising as he doubted the owners of the building were terribly keen on random people wandering up there. The dead bolt was solid as he tried to pull on the heavy, steel door. Not a problem. Out came his sonic screwdriver, a bit of a jiggle and finding the right setting, and he could have the dead bolt open in just a jiff…

The high, clear voice of a young woman calling out in the background made both his hearts stop. Damn! He turned to the noise automatically. The store was supposed to be closing, and some girl was mucking about. He paused, considering. He could just leave whoever was stupid enough to come wandering down there that time of the night, go plant his device and fetch them on the way out again. But he had no idea if the Autons were up and restless. They'd killed the engineer. Likely they would kill her too.

He had plenty enough deaths lying on his conscience, thank you very much, including a now dead chief electrician. Didn't need to add to the list. With a muttered vulgarity in some language that he was certain hadn't ever been heard on Earth, he ran for the sound of the girl's increasingly panicked cries, hoping that he didn't get to her too late.

He snuck in through the fire doors into the main basement, scanning the dim area with sharp eyes. He caught sight of her crouched against one of the far walls, a single blonde head in a forest of white, faceless plastic ones. Creepy buggers, Autons, single-minded in their focus, like early robots following simple binary commands in cheap, plastic bodies. The ability to multi-task wasn't exactly one of their strong suits. So it wasn't particularly difficult for him to squeeze around the mass of them as they surrounded her. She stood terrified, face screwed up as if prepared for the worst.

He simply reached out and grabbed her hand.

The girl jerked, eyes snapping open to him as his fingers touched hers, and he gave her one single command. "Run!"

She didn't think, she didn't hesitate; she simply did as he told her, and held on to his hand for dear life.

He banged through the fire exit; the heavy doors clattering open as the girl followed behind him, running for all she was worth. On their tail he could hear the disturbing, inhuman sound of plastic shuffling across the cement floor as the Autons gave chase. Plastic mannequins they might be, but they could move faster than they appeared to. His hand slammed on the button to the employee lift, the doors opening fast enough to allow him to nearly throw the girl in while he followed behind. Even then the fastest of the Autons caught up, and attempted to grab them through the closing, heavy steel doors.

To her credit the girl didn't scream at the wiggling, white arm reaching for the Doctor's face. He snagged it, giving it a yank, the arm popping easily off its metal post. The doors finished shutting as the elevator rose, well out of the danger of the Autons for now. Doubtful they could even figure out how to work the elevator enough to get up to them, but just in case…

"You pulled his arm off?" The girl yelped, standing against the far wall, panting as she stared with wide, shocky golden-brown eyes at the plastic appendage he still held.

Perceptive this one, "Yep," he grinned, tossing it at her blandly. She caught it, unsure of what to even do with it, but looking mildly disturbed. "Plastic."

Not that it was clearly any reassurance to her. "Very clever! Nice trick!" She was sounding on the verge of hysterics now. The Doctor knew that reaction in humans well, particularly the female sort. Many of his companions had displayed it, that turn up in tone and pitch as their feeble, human brains finally wrapped around whatever concept challenged their singular world view. Show them something they weren't ready for, like a living, plastic arm, and a human was likely to lose all cognitive reasoning if not bodily function.

"Who were they then," the girl demanded, waving the now still piece of plastic. "Students? Is this a student thing or what?"

Really, did humans just look for the most obtuse answer on purpose? "Why would they be students?" What sort of students dressed themselves up in plastic just to scare a shop girl, anyway?

"I don't know," she admitted honestly, but vaguely.

"Well you said it! Why students?" Honestly, she had to have a reason. Did university students dress themselves up in plastic and go muck about in town in twenty-first century London?

"Cause," the girl replied defensively. "To get that many people dressed up and being silly, they got to be students."

Apparently university students did dress up in plastic and run around in twenty-first century London. What a horrible thing to do! Oh well, at least the logic of her argument made sense. And certainly every university student he knew about on all the various worlds and in all the various time periods loved to pull stupid pranks to scare the locals. At least the girl had enough sense to reason it out before she lost her head. Shows she at least didn't drop all cognitive reasoning in the face of danger. Looks like she had a bit of a head on her shoulders. The Doctor grinned at her, impressed.

"That makes sense, well done!"

"Thanks," she flushed; relieved she at least now understood what was going on. Pity he would have to dissuade her of that.

"Their not students," he admitted. He hated blowing up her happy, safe little ball of perfectly reasonable logic but he did, popping that balloon with only a little regret. Time to expand this girl's realm of understanding.

She didn't look as if she believed him, which wasn't the first time a human had given him that look. "Whoever they are, when Wilson finds them he's gonna call the police."

"Who's Wilson?" He doubted this Wilson would know how to deal with Autons any better than this girl did.

"Chief electrician," she supplied.

Oh…him. Clearly she hadn't found the body. "Wilson's dead."

Perhaps he shouldn't have tossed it on her so matter-of-factly like that. Her mouth dropped as the elevator doors opened and she was almost too stunned for a moment to follow him. He forgot sometimes other people weren't as used to death and dying as he was. Had this girl ever even seen a dead body? Somehow he doubted it.

"Who are you, then," she shrieked after him, in that way human's had when they were trying to make sense of something they didn't believe could happen. "Who's that lot down there?"

He could answer her, but what was the point? She was a girl, a kid, little more than a human teenager, who likely got a job at this place selling clothes because she didn't have anywhere else to go. She came to work everyday, did her job, and went home to her boyfriend and her telly without ever thinking that there was something else out there, other possibilities, that there were worlds where plastic was living and consciousness could be shared across wavelength signals.

"I said who are they," she demanded louder, her voice ringing off the concrete corridors. He should just pat her on the head and send her on her way, tell her to be a good girl, have a nice life and run like hell. Instead he stopped and confronted her, the girl with the dyed blonde hair and the large, cinnamon sugar eyes.

"They're made of plastic," he reiterated. "Living plastic creatures. They're being controlled by a relay device on the roof, which would be a great big problem if I didn't have this!"

With a flourish he reached into the transdimensional pockets of his leather coat, easily snagging the explosive device he had slipped in there earlier. She frowned at it quizzically as he continued, opening the exit doors that led them to the service entrance behind the store.

"So, I'm going to go up there and blow them up! And I might well die in the process!" He could die, he theorized, it was a possibility. But then almost all of his adventures in this current incarnation seemed to always possess the vague threat of his demise. If he were a psychologist he would say it was survivors guilt, the need to put himself in as much danger as possible to make up for all of those he lost. But then, he never did put much stock in psychologists; all were a load of nutters anyway.

"But don't worry about me, no!" He bustled the girl out of the door, despite her confused protests as she clutched the white, plastic arm to her. "Go home, go on! Go and have your lovely beans on toast!"

The girl stuttered and spluttered as she stumbled backwards into the alley, clearly at a loss as to how to respond to any of this. He had to get her out of here and quickly if he wanted to get the job done before the Autons made it up the stairs and out the front of the glass windowed store.

"Don't tell anyone about this," he cautioned flippantly, already calculating which route to the roof would get him there most quickly. "Because if you do, you'll get them killed."

With that, he shut the heavy door on the girl's pretty, but bemused, face.

Which stairway should he try, the one at the north end or the south? North was closest, but then had that dodgy bit in the middle by the dentist office. South was a straight shot, but it was the one that led directly to the basement and might be filled with Autons now. He should have made sure to close that one route back off before he ran to grab…what was her name again? Perhaps he should have asked.

He jerked open the door again, finding her still standing there, as if trying to sort out if she should run or call the police. "I'm the Doctor, by the way," he offered with a manic grin by way of greeting. "What's yours?"

"Rose," she replied simply, clearly at a loss as to why he was even asking.

"Nice to meet you, Rose." Such a lovely name. "Now, run for your life!"

He slammed the door shut again seriously hoping the girl took his advice. Rose…yes, a very lovely name.

How fast could he make it up the steps again?


	3. A Rose By Any Other Name

He awoke to the sound of fire sirens wailing into the night.

The air was filled with the scent of acrid smoke, as high above it plumes of white spray rained down on the mess that had been Henrik's. He blinked, eyes gritty with ash as he sat up from where he had fallen…where had he fallen? He took stock of his situation. Cold asphalt, the scent of stale wrappers and rotting vegetables, not to mention human urine, under the heady cloud of smoke, a chain link fence, and a fire escape that led to the top of the burning building.

Well, he had nearly made it out of the way before the explosion. Like as not the impact had sent him careening over the edge of the metal framework to the back alley below, with its trash bin and little else. Right, well, he seemed to be all right, save for his blasted right shoulder. That one protested, still not completely healed from his "escaping the barbecue" incident.

Another fine day's work done, then, right? He pulled himself off of what he sincerely hoped was a bag of garbage and not something else more disgusting, and stumbled off into the growing darkness, avoiding the swelling chaos that was beginning to surround what had once been a clothing store and office building. Already police had blocked off all the streets surrounding the block, and people gathered around the steel frame barricades, eyes wide as they stared up at the carnage in front of them. Humans always did like a good show, especially when it involved death and destruction in the abstract. When it involved them personally they were never nearly quite as amused. The Doctor had never seen a race more preoccupied with death and dying than humans…with the possible exception of the inhabitants of Selucis Seven, who fit you out for a coffin as a rite of initiation into adulthood. He supposed the idea was that it had to happen someday.

Frankly he had seen his fill of enough death and dying to last one lifetime let alone nine of them. Grimly he wended his way through the gawking crowds towards the solitary, blue police box hiding in the shadows around a lonely corner. No one noticed it sitting there, and that was the way he liked it. Cradling his right arm close, he clumsily reached for his TARDIS key, letting himself into the pleasant hum of his ship.

He collapsed into the jump seat gratefully, rubbing his shoulder, feeling disgust at the smell of smoke that seemed to cling to his clothes. It reminded him too painfully of another time, one that felt like just yesterday for all that it happened ages ago. He grunted as he reached across to the computer monitor, flicked a few symbols with one long finger, and watched as the news feed came up live on his screen.

Gas leak…suspected terrorist attack…he snorted, giggling maniacally at the reporter on the BBC. Really, humans were so oblivious. And that was why he liked them, he supposed. They never got hung up on the possibilities of what might be. They lived for the moment, humans, only concerned about their telly and their movie stars, their sporting events, and their politics. And when they bothered to think about things other than chips and gossip, when the universe threatened to slap them in the face with the force of its own existence, they always acted like it was the biggest surprise. For them it was. Life was always an adventure for humans, something to be taken by the horns, to be conquered.

He couldn't say that for many races, certainly not his own.

Like that human girl, he mused, the one he drug out of the building. Rose. All she had done that day was go down the basement, like any rational personal would do at closing time, in the dark, all alone, by herself. She like as not had ever heard of the Nestene, or Autons, never even seen anything like it before. That's why she thought they were students playing a prank. And yet when she was faced with an untimely death at the hands of some faceless mannequin, she had taken his hand and simply trusted him. Hadn't thought about it, hadn't given it a second turn, just ran. She was rather brilliant in that. Smart too, for a human. Sure, she had gotten it wrong about the students, but it was a logical explanation for a situation she had utterly no point of reference for. She tried, at least, to understand. Most other people would have been having hysterical, jabbering fits by that point.

Rose…

The universe seemed to like having a joke on him now and again, he realized. Rose…that had been another young girl's name once. She had been about the same age in Time Lord years, nothing more than a slip of dark hair and fire, in love with all things human, from their music to their fashion. He'd never known much about humans, the strange little race of beings on the tiny little rock called the Earth. He'd always been more interested in the more cultured and educated places in the universe, the sort that bored a young lady like her to tears. She had wanted to go to the Earth because it was adventurous and fun, it was different, because the humans knew how to live life. And so he had agreed, because he loved her, adored her really, and he couldn't really bring himself to tell her no. He had come to love this planet too, through her eyes. He had come to care for its strange, weird, pink little humans, who looked so much like Gallifreyans did but were so different. He had even taken on Ian and Barbara and later others, dragging humans into his adventures again and again. All because one young woman named Rose had wrapped him totally and completely around her fingers.

Of course she had stopped going by Rose by that time, because Time Lords never used their real names anyway. She was clever, like he was, and as a lover of all things human chose a human name, a sideways reference to her own…Susan. He had tried to point out that technically Shoshanna could mean "lily" as much as "rose", but she liked it because it was sensible. It was the name she carried with him through time and space. That was the name she still carried when he left her so long ago.

Had she made it through the darkness, through the blood, and terror, and war? He hoped she had, she and her children. But he somehow could sense that she hadn't. He had no idea if it was the Time War that took her or something else. But in the whole of the known universe he knew she was gone, like they all were. The comfortable press of so many other consciousnesses like his own were now gone from reality, leaving a vacuum behind.

He suddenly felt very cold.

Speaking of consciousness, he blinked back at the screen, at the unfolding damage just outside of his door. Likely they would get it all out in a bit, and the plastic inside would be melted too far for him to get a good sample for tracking purposes. He needed to find the Nestene while he had the advantage. No one knew he was there, that he was responsible, that he was even alive. He reached an aching arm across to prod at the screen, to trace the signal and where it was coming from. So far as he could tell there was nothing. He'd likely scared them the minute he set off the bomb, and he doubted the Nestene would try anything else for the rest of the night. The main consciousness would likely regroup for now, trying to figure out what went wrong, and come back at it later.

He stared at the screen, waiting for something to kick up, as he knew it would with the Nestene. And he thought of his granddaughter, and of roses, and of a blonde girl who somewhere out there was sleeping comfortable, believing this whole evening to be a bizarre, weird chapter of her perfectly normal, "beans-on-toast" sort of life.


	4. Bad Wolf

He should have somehow known that this would all come back to Rose. But he admitted to a certain amount of surprise as he peeked in the cat flap to the dingy little apartment and saw those warm, brown eyes frowning at him from the other side. And there was no way to play it cool once she opened the door and dragged him inside, demanding answers out of him, especially not with her mother making eyes at him from out of her boudoir. Really, he was a perfect stranger! He could be some psychotic axe wielder and the woman was trying to make a pass at him! As disturbing as it was his ego couldn't help but preen just slightly at that. Clearly he still had something that drew the female types to him, despite the big ears and funny nose. Now if only he could convince one certain young lady that she needed to stay away from him. Far away from him.

Rose ran after him, stupid plastic arm still in hand. It hadn't fazed her that it came to life and had nearly suffocated her, instead it only fueled the barrage of questions that she peppered him with as she trailed behind him. Even the honest truth about what she was facing, an alien attack on her home world, didn't seem to convince her. She simply glared at him, hands stuffed in her hoody, as if she had any, bloody idea what was coming if he didn't find the Nestene. A part of him wanted to tell her that she was a foolish child and to stay out of it. Another part of him found her amazingly brilliant, this girl who dared to throw herself into something that by rights was far more dangerous than she should. It would be so easy to let her tag along, he knew that, how many companions had he allowed into his life that way? It was so…tempting. But he knew as she stared at his retreating figure, demanding to know who he was and why he was doing all of this, that he couldn't do let her into his mad world. Not to this slip of a girl who was all eyes and overdone make up. 

He turned to her, away from his TARDIS in the distance. Rose Tyler, so confident that she could understand even half of the situation she was getting into. "Do you know, like we were saying? About the Earth revolving?"

She nodded carefully, curious as he began to cross the space between them, the sunshine bright off of her fake, blonde hair.

"It's like when you were a kid," he continued, vaguely recalling such a period, when he stood in a hill overlooking a sea of rolling red grass at his feet. "The first time they tell you the world's turning and you can't quite believe it because everything looks like it is standing still."

He paused in front of her, the breeze picking up around them as she shivered ever so slightly against it.

"I can feel it," he whispered, reaching for her hand once again. Her fingers were warm against his cool ones, grasping instinctively, not even jerking away at the surprise contact. In that instant he could feel her, her life, her essence, and that of the entire planet through her as it spun and twisted in the void of space around the golden, yellow sun.

"The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour. The entire planet is hurtling around the sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour, and I can feel it." His twin hearts raced as he allowed his senses to reach out across reality, through time and space, to feel the rush of the Earth beneath them, like the wind that played right now across his face.

"We're falling through space, you and me," he murmured, his fingers tightening around hers briefly. "Clinging to the skin of this tiny world and if we let go…."

Something rose unbidden into his awareness, primal and ageless. It was both familiar and strange, comforting and terrifying, and it caused his hearts to stutter in their pace, as his consciousness shied away from whatever it was and shrank back into himself, not quiet frightened but certainly confused. He was torn from his link to time and space itself, his eyes snapping open as he let go of the girl's hand abruptly, something ragged and unsettling clawing inside of his head.

Where had that come from, he wondered dazedly as he met Rose's wide-eyed gaze.

"That's who I am." he said simply, sadly, his skin itching as he tried to understand what just happened. "Now forget me, Rose Tyler."

He snagged the former Auton's plastic arm and waved it in front of her nose. "Go home," he ordered again, turning on her with the thing tucked under his arm. He didn't look back as he opened the TARDIS and stepped inside.

What the hell was that?

On automatic he stumbled to the console, leaving the plastic arm on top to hang drunkenly off one of the levers. It might be useful, perhaps, for tracking down the signal, but seeing as it was dead now, he doubted that. He shifted to his monitor, the TARDIS humming as he began typing into the screen the Gallifreyan words for the thing that had torn into his mind.

He waited for the TARDIS' computer to come up with an explanation for "bad wolf".

Never before had he encountered anything like what he felt. It was ageless and timeless and so personal. As if time could form an entity, and that entity had reached out to him and touched his brain. It made him shiver as he thought of it, wondering what in the universe could have that effect? Perhaps a telepathic race, perhaps something elemental? Was there something in the volumes of Time Lord lore stashed in the one, surviving TARDIS in the universe that could explain it?

To his disappointment all the TARDIS turned up was a Gallifreyan dictionary reference for the separate terms of "bad" and "wolf", complete with translations in several thousand languages. In frustration he flipped through the screens, only turning up pictures of wolves native to Earth and to several hundred other planets that humans eventually colonize and take the endangered animals with them. Far from helpful.

What was that…thing? He tried to think, to find out what was different that could have drawn such an entity to him. He was reaching into time and space, his Time Lord senses stretching across the fabric of the universe, like he had always been able to do. He was holding Rose's hand…was she the difference? Somehow he that didn't seem right. The girl was human and painfully normal. Nothing about her seemed to be spectacular enough to draw cosmic entities of time towards her. What was it? The Nestene?

Disturbed more than he wanted to even admit, he frowned at the plastic arm lying beside him. Whatever this "bad wolf" was, it didn't seem malevolent, at least not towards him. Terrifying, yes, but not threatening. For now he would have to leave it be. If it wasn't a danger to him he needed to focus on the Nestene.

"Let's see if we can't find the signal out there somewhere, shall we," he muttered as his fingers danced across the screen. "We'll set up a filter to look through all the signals in the London area, and see if one peeks out all strange and funny." Considering the number of television, radio, and wireless signals out there it could take hours to filter through them all to find anything unusual. But it was the best idea he had at the moment, and it was better than sitting on his hands waiting for the Autons to strike yet again.

"Let me know if you turn up anything," he frowned to no one in particular, but talking to his ship nonetheless. "I'll see if I can't root around down below and boost the signal reading capabilities up a tic." 

He grabbed his rubber headed mallet and opened the grating at his feet, preparing to do battle. "Shouldn't hurt more than a little bit."


	5. TARDIS

Pizza! When was the last time he had anything like that? The Doctor ignored the rumble in his stomach, reminding himself that the superior, Time Lord biology only needed to eat a handful of times in a week. Of course he was fairly certain he had eaten less than that, considering how fluid time was for him and how he had the tendency to get wrapped up in things like Nestene, and forgetting things like eating. Still, the smell of garlic and baking bread did nothing to help his quickly deteriorating mood as he slipped into the restaurant through the kitchen. No one took much notice of him, and it always surprised him that humans so rarely did. After all, here's this tall, funny looking bloke in a leather jacket. He could have been a terrorist or a murderer. To some species that exactly what he was. But here, with humanity, they seemed blissfully ignorant.

Without much notice he slipped in behind the bar, scanning the restaurant quickly. It was some sort of trendy style for this time period in London, all open windows, glass, and chrome. A wood fire burned nearby in a brick oven, obviously where the pizzas were baked, and high-end liquor lined the shelves behind the bar. The restaurant was fairly populated, it was now late lunchtime, and in the middle of all the tables filled with murmuring customers sat…

He should have known.

Rose Tyler didn't seem to notice him standing there, but then he doubted she was paying attention to much of anything. She was prattling on, chatting animatedly to the plastic thing sitting in front of her, clearly unaware of the unnaturalness of her companion while she nattered about. How could she not notice? Had she looked at the poor bloke once? How could one human girl be so oblivious, he wondered, as he surreptitiously reached for an expensive looking bottle of champagne from behind the bar. Should be enough to cause a distraction at least, he thought, slipping up to the table as unobtrusively as one of the wait staff.

The Doctor wondered if Rose's companion was supposed to be dark skinned, and felt himself shiver at the unnatural ashiness of the Auton. Really, even his eyes didn't blink. How could she not pick up on this? But then the Auton was nearly as oblivious as Rose was, at least he was supposed to be that way. He decided to sidle up to the plastic creature first. "Your champagne?"

The Auton didn't bother looking at the giant, green glass bottle the Doctor shoved in his face. "We didn't order any." The creature's large hand reached out slammed down on the frail, pink one that was Rose's. She gasped, eyes large, as she finally seemed to be cottoning on she was in danger. Only took her sitting down at a table, wining and dining a plastic creature to catch on something was amiss. Maybe he should rethink the intelligence of this one.

With a sigh and a smile, he simply rounded the table to Rose's side, sticking the bottle in front of her face. "Your champagne."

She didn't bother looking at it either. "It's not ours," she waived him away, distracted. "Mickey what is it? What's wrong?"

"I need to find out how much you know, so where is he?"

"Doesn't anybody want this champagne," The Doctor lamented, giving it a good shake as the Auton's eyes finally locked onto his. It was only then that the plastic man showed any emotion beyond it's manic, psychopathic smile.

Well that cleared it up, the Nestene were on to him. He wondered what the tip off had been? The moving hand? Or perhaps the explosion had been too much. Surely the Nestene didn't recognize this face, but then maybe they had caught site of the TARDIS and put it all together. Well, for a plastic based, hive consciousness, he supposed they weren't altogether stupid, and they had plenty of experience with him before. Still, they could be incredibly thick. For all the time he was taking trying to unwire the cork on the bottle of champagne, the Auton didn't even budge. Made his forehead an easy target as the cork popped and sunk into the plastic skin.

That was just…disgusting!

Perhaps just as thick was Rose, who only finally caught on that something was amiss the moment the creature spit out the cork, smirking at the Doctor. She only just did scramble out of the way with a scream of horror as the Auton smashed into the table, hands turning into fleshy cricket bats as it began to swing madly at them. Well, that would never do! Without thinking, the Doctor made a grab for the creature's head, and with a quick turn and pull popped it off the neck of its body with a sound akin to the opening champagne bottle.

That's about when all hell broke loose in the restaurant.

He couldn't help but laugh at the situation. It was rather ridiculous. He was holding the leering head of the Auton, whose body was roaming about the dining area, smashing things like something out of a surreal cartoon, and people were screaming, unsure of what to make of it. And there stood Rose, taking it all in, and in one moment lunged for the fire alarm, ordering everyone out of the establishment and away from the blind, destructive Auton.

She was rather brilliant after all, he thought smugly, as he tucked the Auton's head in his arm like a rugby ball and made for the kitchen, Rose right in front, screaming for everyone to get out. No sooner than they were clear of the service entry did he have his sonic screwdriver out, locking the door behind them. He could hear banging and shouting on the other side, and knew the body would be following any second.

"Open the gate!" Rose, like any reasonable human he supposed, had looked for the most obvious exit. She had clearly missed the large, blue police box standing in the corner. She tugged at the giant, metal padlock on the fence and turned to him desperately. "Use that tube thing! Come on!"

Tube thing? He frowned down at the instrument in his hand, insulted. "What, this? This is a sonic screwdriver."

She obviously didn't care if it were a sonic screwdriver or a tube thing. "Use it," she demanded, pulling on the fencing, looking perhaps for give somewhere in the links, or a way to climb up and over them before the plastic creature banging on the door broke through.

"Nah," the Doctor shook his head, coolly strolling over to his box, key in hand. "Tell you what, let's go in here."

Rose turned to stare at him frantically over her shoulder as if he were mad. He supposed he was about a great many things, but not this, thankfully. He shrugged, leaving her to it. She'd either come in or not, though he voted she would because where else was she going to go? Besides, he couldn't waste time trying to convince one bone-headed, oblivious human girl that it was perfectly safe to enter into a strange, blue police box that looked as if a stiff wind could knock it about, let alone a headless, plastic beast. He had to attach that creatures head to his scanners and see if he couldn't turn up a signal somewhere.

"We can't hide inside a wooden box," he heard her protest, rattling the gate. "It's going to get us! Doctor!"

Her cries finally gave into acceptance as he watched her on the monitor finally give in, running inside the doors, her steps coming up the ramp, than stopping abruptly.

One, two, three….

Rose turned on her heels and ran out the door.

It was to be expected, he supposed, sighing as he plugged wires into what had been the head of an Auton that had once been a man. A rather gormless looking one at that. Was he a friend of Rose's? A boyfriend? The idea of him being a boyfriend seemed ridiculous, she seemed like a girl with better taste than that. Still, she was young, hadn't seen much of the world, and everyone was entitled to their youthful mistakes. He'd had a bad romance or three himself in younger days.

He waited for Rose to do obligatory circle around the ship outside, as she concluded that yes, indeed, the TARDIS was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. And he certainly hoped she realized that startling bit of quantum physics before she got bludgeoned to death. Thankfully she ran back inside just as the body made its way through the solid, metal door. No sooner had she closed the TARDIS doors behind her than he hit the button to send the TARDIS after the signal feeding to the Auton's head.

"It's going to follow us," she cried, breathless as she ran up the ramp.

"The assembled hoards of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door, and believe me, they've tried." He didn't even look up from the head as he adjusted the wires. "Not shut up a minute."

She at least bothered to listen to him. He gave her credit for that. And the TARDIS seemed to be tracing the signal just fine, much better than it would have with the arm. "You see, the arm is too simple, but the head is perfect," he explained to the girl, still staring around her as if she had suddenly taken a tumble through the looking glass. "I can use it to trace the signal back to the original source."

"Right." He nodded, things were going, and now he would have to face the large, elephant in the room. Well, more like the small, petite, blonde girl with questions pouring out of her large, brown eyes. "Where do you want to start?"

Her gaze roved upwards, up the coral struts towards the depths of the dimly lit, cavernous ceiling, before rolling down the rotor towards the grating and the depths below. It was perhaps a good thing she couldn't see the other rooms beyond the console room…like the bedrooms, or the baths…or the library…the kitchen…the clothing room….the pool…

"The inside's bigger than the outside?"

"Yes," he replied simply, knowing there was more she wanted to ask.

"It's alien?"

"Yep," he affirmed quietly, his gaze not wavering from hers.

"Are you…alien?" The word fell off her full lips, almost as if she were embarrassed to ask.

"Yes," he replied, his hearts suddenly failing him in that moment. "Is that alright?"

Why should it bother him if it were all right or not? For whatever reason, it did. It mattered vitally that it was.

To his relief the girl nodded. "Yeah."

Good…that was good.

"It's called the TARDIS, this thing. T-A-R-D-I-S, that's Time and Relative Dimension in Space." His mini lecture prompted something of a small sob from the girl as finally the enormity of it all got to her. Ah well, was bound to happen sometime, even to the bravest. Frankly he was startled she had made it this far without fainting.

"That's okay. Culture shock, happens to the best of us," he tried to sooth her.

"Did they kill him," she blurted, her eyes suddenly streaming as she stared towards the plastic head on the consol. "Mickey? Did they kill Mickey? Is he dead?"

Mickey? Who was Mickey? It took him a long moment to realize she meant the Auton creature, or rather the human that the Auton had copies. She would assume the worst. "Didn't think of that," he muttered aloud, immediately earning the girl's ire.

"He's my boyfriend! You pulled off his head! They copied him and you didn't even think?" Her eyes blazed amber fire at him, as he started to feel rather annoyed with this presumptuous girl who questioned his motivations. "And now you're just going to let him melt?"

Melt? What? He spun around just in time to see the Mickey creature's face turn into mocha-colored sludge. "No! No, no, no, no!"

So close! So close to finding the signal and negotiating an end to all of this, and all this stupid girl could think of was her idiot boyfriend? He had been the one foolish enough to get himself caught and copied. It wasn't the Doctor's fault that he proved to be an idiot. And now his clone was melting all over his beautiful console, making a sticky mess, and leaving him without a signal.

He slammed buttons and pulled levers. If he was lucky, very lucky, he might just find it again.

"What are you doing," the girl demanded, querulous as he ignored her, eyes to the screen. The readout scrolled by in Gallifreyan, faster than any human eye could read it. They were getting something.

"Reviving the signal, it's fading," he barked, watching the stream of symbols till they petered out, stopping. "No…no, no, no, no…."

The TARDIS shook around them, Rose shooting nervous glances towards the pumping rotor, as the Doctor pleaded with his lovely, beautiful, wonderful machine to just go just a bit further.

"Almost there," he muttered. "Almost there!" The rotor slowed, the whirring sound dying in there ears. "Here we go!"

The engine stopped, the TARDIS humming somewhat apologetically as the Doctor made for the door. Rose watched him go, eyes the size of dinner plates as he strode outside. "You can't go out there! It's not safe!"

Perhaps he should have explained the entire space and dimension thing to her a bit more, he reasoned briefly as he scanned his surroundings. But frankly, he lacked the time, and he doubted she would get it anyway. Besides, wherever they were, it wasn't where they needed to be. He sighed, shoulders sagging under his large, leather coat, eyes skimming over the large, glassy expanse of the Thames at night. A jumble of swear words in a variety of languages stuttered to mind.

Somewhere behind him the girl, Rose, stumbled out and gasped.

"I lost the signal," he shot back by way of forlorn explanation. "I got so close!"

The fact his failure was hardly the think she noticed at all. "We've moved?" She spun on the spot, frowning. "Does it fly?"

Her lack of understanding of basic dimensional physics was starting to annoy him. "Disappears there, reappears here, you wouldn't understand."

His snippiness hardly fazed her, though. "But if we're somewhere else, what about the headless thing? It's still on the loose!"

"It melted with the head. Are you going on all night," he snapped, losing patience. She would be more concerned over the monster she could understand than the Nestene that she couldn't. Humans, always worried about the things they could see and never the things they couldn't, which is what got this planet into trouble again and again. Which speaking of, if he didn't find that signal soon….he had tracked it this far, perhaps if he could think, what in the area could be used as a transmitter. Something big enough to carry it across London…

"I'll have to tell his mother," Rose continued sadly, forlorn and oblivious to the current danger, still muttering about something else. The Doctor turned to her, confused.

"Mickey!" Fire flashed in the girl's dark eyes, disapproval creasing her full mouth as she glared at him. "I'll have to tell his mother he's dead, and you just went and forgot him, again!"

He rolled his eyes skyward. Really, she was carrying on about her boyfriend when the world was going to end at the hands of a plastic army if he didn't find the Nestene Consciousness soon? Of course, he could probably tell her that her boyfriend was likely not dead, only copied and being held somewhere, but then she'd likely want to go find him rather than stop all of this.

"You were right, you are alien," she sneered, turning heel and stomping away.

Okay, perhaps seeing her angry and disappointed in him did bother him, he thought, watching her charge off. Just a tiny bit. Enough to make his ever-present guilt sting at his ever present pride. Bollocks!

"Look," he called, exasperated. "If I did forget some kid called Mickey…"

The girl whirled on him, her hair a blonde blur. "Yeah, he's not a kid."

He ignored her. "It's because I'm trying to save the life of every stupid ape blundering on the top of this planet, alright?"

That gave her righteous indignation pause. Her jaw set, her perfect, rosebud mouth hardening, but something akin to apology, or perhaps it was acceptance, flashed in her expression. "Alright," she muttered grudgingly.

"Yes, it is," he shot back. Why was he getting into an argument with this impossible child anyway?

Perhaps she was thinking the same thing as she shook her head, eyes darting to the lights on the other side of the wide river. "If you are an alien, then how come you should like you're from the North?"

Really, now she was questioning him? A small voice was asking why he was putting up with this he had a planet to save. But something made him humor the nosy, flighty, impossible girl.

"Lots of planets have a North," he replied indignantly, crossing his arms defensively as he felt his ears turn ever the slightest bit pink. To be honest he had no idea why it was he sounded like he was from the North. Perhaps it was due to his perpetual anger and guilt. Was that a very Northern thing?

Rose smirked but didn't press, instead studying the TARDIS behind him. "What's a police public call box?"

Right! She wouldn't know that, she was too young. She'd grown up with mobile phones. He felt a bit more on even footing here, turning to his beloved ship. "It's a telephone box from the 1950's." He reached over to pat the wooden frame lovingly, grinning broadly as he remembered why it was his ship looked like that. "It's a disguise."

She shook her head and smiled, clearly thinking he was daft. "Okay, and this living plastic. What's it got against us?"

"Nothing! It loves you," the Doctor replied honestly, shrugging matter-of-factly. "You've got such a good planet. Lots of smoke and oil, plenty of toxins and dioxins in the air, perfect!" He sobered slightly as he regarded the girl. "Just what the Nestene Consciousness needs. It's food stock was destroyed in the war, all it's protein plants rotted so Earth…dinner!"

Any other human likely would have been horrified to hear of their home being nothing more than a buffet for an alien race, but Rose seemed to take it surprisingly in stride. "Any way of stopping it," she asked firmly, not even blinking."

He had to admit, a small part of him was coming to like this Rose Tyler. Grinning madly he reached inside his coat, pulling out the tube of blue liquid, brandishing it in front of her. "Anti-plastic."

She frowned at the vial in the street light overhead. "Anti-plastic?"

"Anti-plastic," he repeated, figuring it was self-explanatory enough not to need to explain. "But first, I've got to find it. How can you hide something that big in a city this small?" He spun on the spot, frowning. Granted, in the grand scheme of human cities, London was giant, one of the larger ones on the planet, but in comparison to planet sized cities, which would suit the Nestene just perfectly…

"Hold on? Hide what?"

Oh yes, he hadn't explained that bit to her. "The transmitter! The Consciousness is controlling every single piece of plastic so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal."

That part she got, the girl lived on her cell phone. She nodded, eyes searching the area behind him across the river. "What's it look like?"

"Like a transmitter," he replied in frustration. Shouldn't that be obvious? "Round and massive, slap bang in the middle of London."

He whirled around, frantically scanning for anything that resembled what he was looking for. "A huge, circular metal structure, like a dish."

He turned to Rose, mind racing. "Like a wheel, close to where we're standing." He shook his head, something like that should be so obvious. "Must be completely invisible."

Rose's eyes flickered behind him, her eyes widening over his right shoulder.

"What," he frowned. Had he missed something?

She nodded over his shoulder. He turned, but saw nothing of note. Tall buildings, Westminster bridge, a giant Ferris wheel…

"What," he pushed, turning back to her for an explanation. Annoyingly she simply stared at something over his shoulder. What was back there? Nothing dangerous, he'd looked already. No rift, no alien spaceship, no annoying bit of dandruff…well he hoped not dandruff, he didn't really have the hair for it this time, not like his last incarnation…

"What," he turned, exasperated as he glanced across the skyline again. "What is it? What?" But Rose's only reaction was to keep pointedly staring at whatever it is that caught her fancy. He turned around, wondering what in the hell he could be missing. Tall buildings, Westminster bridge, a large Ferris wheel…

A large Ferris wheel…the London Eye. Oh he really was thick…old and thick, how could he miss this? And this strip of a girl who didn't even understand the first thing about quantum or dimensional physics, who couldn't understand how the TARDIS even operated, had figured out what he was looking for with the blink of an eye. A wide, delighted grin crawled across his face, reaching from one big ear to the other.

"Oh," he breathed. It was obvious and yet so clever, the London Eye. So very clever, and he nearly had missed it, if not for one Rose Tyler. "Fantastic!"

His feet took off almost before he realized it, and close behind him ran the girl. He should have told her to stay put, that this was dangerous stuff, but even his common sense told him she'd probably not listen. She hadn't listened to him up to this point, anyhow, why should he bother trying to make her do it now? Instead he turned over his shoulder, reaching an arm out to her, his fingers stretching for hers. Without missing a step, she grabbed them tightly, holding on for dear life.

He ignored the pleased, giddy feeling that crept in his fantastic mind that enjoyed the weight of the girl's hand in his, the sound of her breathless and excited beside him. She was there because he couldn't get rid of her, because she kept turning up, and if he left her alone she'd only get herself in some other sort of trouble. That was all. It wasn't as if he wanted her there or even needed her there. If anything she was simply one more thing he had to worry about as he tried to sort this all out. Hopefully she didn't muck everything up with the Consciousness once he found it. Humans always had the habit of throwing a monkey wrench into these things.

He didn't want to think that he actually enjoyed her being there with him.


	6. Gymnastics and Window Dressing

He should have suspected this would go bad the minute that the Consciousness brought up the Time War.

The Doctor had hoped, perhaps in vain, that the entity would not jump to the Time War, or to the role his people played in it. He had hoped that if he dropped "Shadow Proclamation" and "treaties" the Consciousness would simply assume he was there on behalf of the inter-galactic police force and would be willing to deal honestly with him. Perhaps the anti-plastic in is pocket would not be necessary…or at least he hoped it wouldn't be necessary. He had forgotten though, in his old, doddering brain how reactionary the Nestene could be, and that they remembered the Doctor all to well. He shouldn't have been surprised that it panicked at the site of a Time Lord, one of the authors of its now current homelessness. After all, Dalek, Time Lord, what did it matter in the grand scheme of the Nestene Consciousness' loss? As far as the entity was concerned they were all responsible for the death of the species, and they were all equally a threat. Finding the TARDIS was simply the ultimate proof that the Doctor was not there to negotiate, but to finish off the work the Time War had started.

He met Rose's fathomless eyes staring down above him and his dual hearts lurched painfully within him. Just a girl, an innocent kid he had allowed to get wrapped up in this. He should have dropped her off at home before coming here, deposited her safe and sound and gone about his business. But selfishly he had allowed himself to bring her there, and now she and her idiot of a boyfriend would both suffer the consequences.

"What's it doing," she asked, trying to hide the quaver in her voice and failing miserably. Somehow even the pretense of bravery warmed the Doctor as he regarded her apologetically.

"It's the TARDIS. The Nestene has identified its superior technology. It's terrified!" He had been such an idiot. How could he have thought he could walk in here with reason and expect to convince it?

"It's going to the final phase. It's starting the invasion." He struggled briefly against the unrelenting, plastic grips of the Autons beside him. "Get out, Rose, just leg it. Now!"

She should have listened. But when had Rose listened to him since he met her? Rather than taking his shouted command to flee, she reached into her pocket for her cell phone. Chatting at a time like this?

Below the Nestene began to hum and pulse, electric energy forming and coalescing as it climbed up to a transmitter hanging above the vivid, orange mass. The electrical signal vibrated its way up, and he could feel the entire structure quake beneath his thick boots.

"It's the activation signal," he cried out. "It's transmitting!"

Right now, in the streets of London above, whole armies of shop mannequins were likely coming to life. As families took advantage of the warming weather, they would be wandering about as out of the open, plate glass fronts these white, faceless everyday objects would begin to move, begin to open fire on the populace, taking out entire crowds of people in the blink of an eye. It would be pandemonium. And all because he didn't stop and think this through. How many would die in the world above them that night because he had been foolish and over-confident, and had stupidly believed he could reason himself out of this situation. His options were limited now. The Autons had the anti-plastic, and were holding it well away from him. And their grip on him was tight. But in the end they were still just plastic dummies, no weight to them. If he could get good leverage, perhaps swing himself just right, he could topple the one into the other, knocking both into over into the Nestene Consciousness, taking the anti-plastic with them. Of course, they would likely be taking him with them as well. And that was the sort of death he highly doubted he could come back from.

Well…he had to go sometime, didn't he? And lets be honest, he reasoned with himself, it wasn't as if he hadn't had a bit of a death wish in this regeneration anyway. After all, he had never expected to come out of the Time War alive in the first place. As Gallifrey burned and the time lock sealed he had fully expected that he would die there, with his people…so he wouldn't have to face the weight of what he had done alone. But the universe was cruel, and rather than die a final death, he had lived, the singular survivor of a now long dead species.

Dead because of his hand, because of his doing. Gone, gone, Gallifrey gone, and he continued on and on, hopping from world to world, from time to time, doing now in this face and body what he couldn't do for his own people. Saving races, saving people, doing what he can to make one little difference. One family on the Titanic, one person at Krakatau, a child in Constantinople the day that it fell, all those lives here and there, all because he couldn't save the one race of people he wanted to save most. Perhaps, he reasoned as he stared into the glowing, orange depths below, this was his time after all. She would live, so would her idiot boyfriend, and he could go where he belonged…the way of the rest of the Time Lords. All he would have to do would be to tip right over, taking the one dummy with him.

He stared up at the golden brown eyes of the girl above him. She stared back, but not in hopelessness or abject fear. Something fierce crossed through that gaze, determination setting on her pretty face as she made off to the stairs. It took even his fabulous, Time Lord brain a moment to realize what she was up to, and stomach clenched in between his two hearts. He watched her swing, unafraid straight towards one of the mannequins holding him down, knocking the second holding the vial straight into the heart of the writhing mass below.

He grabbed her before she could fly off over the Consciousness, holding her tight as the anti-plastic did its work. He wanted to tell her she was brilliant, that she was fantastic, that he had not met a human quite like her. What he did instead was grin in abject delight at the roiling mass, quickly turning blue below them, and glance madly at the girl beside him.

"Now we're in trouble," he laughed, grabbing her hand and pulling her behind him. He had his key in hand, jamming it in the door, jarring his shoulder hard, but he hardly cared. He slammed open the TARDIS, tossing Rose inside as he reached for the great lump crying at the door and drug him inside as well.

"Hold on," he cried merrily, running to the console to jam levers and press buttons, twirling dials at the time rotor pulsed and the TARDIS engines grinded. The moaning lump whimpered and cried, but Rose…he looked to the slip of blonde and denim, eyes wide, but a smile curving her face. She could have given up back there, turned into a spineless jelly like that thing she called a boyfriend. But she hadn't. She had thrown herself into the thick of it. She had saved the world! She had certainly saved his life.

Done that for him…a perfect stranger…and alien one at that. A man with so much blood on his hands, not that she knew that, and yet there she was, frumpy clothes, overdone make-up, and a determined glare, out to take on something she had never seen before all to save his wretched, measly life. Without a second thought…

Perhaps he had underestimated Rose Tyler.

He flipped a switch, the time rotor stopped, and both of his human occupants, wide-eyed and overwhelmed, took one look at it as he nodded to the door. Rickey or Dickey or whatever he was didn't need a second telling, he simply bolted, throwing himself out of the doors and out onto the street. Rose simply rolled her eyes and followed pulling her cell phone from her jean pocket, as if the world hadn't been ending thirty seconds ago.

He'd been alone for such a very long time.

"What do you think?" He glanced up at the console room ceiling, wondering if the TARDIS had much to say on the subject. His ship couldn't speak to him, not per se, but it seemed pleased with the idea as far as he could tell. Not that he had ever consulted with his ship before when bringing others on board, but for so long now it had just been she and him, the last two of their kind in the universe. Perhaps they both needed someone new in the place to liven it up, someone fresh, someone who hadn't seen the same, tired things through the old, tired eyes.

He wandered to the door, watched the pair of them. The idiot was hiding behind a pallet, large, frightened eyes turned on him as if he were green with three heads, which the Doctor could show him, if he wished. But really, the Doctor had eyes for one girl, who was laughing as looked at him, half in wonder, half in boast.

"A fat lot of good you were," she chortled proudly.

He shrugged with a confidence he didn't feel. "Nestene Consciousness, easy."

"You were useless in there," she snorted, her wide, full mouth grinning cockily. "You'd be dead if it wasn't for me."

"Yes, I would," he admittedly simply. She was brilliant. And he needed brilliance in his life, light and warmth and shining.

"Right, then, I'll be off," he glanced towards the flashing lights and sirens in the distance, knowing he wanted no part of that. He glanced sideways at the girl with her battered hoody and shrugged. "Unless…I don't know. You could come with me."

He saw the spark of interest in those eyes. It gave him courage to press on. "This box isn't just a London hopper, you know, it goes anywhere in the universe free of charge."

She wanted to come. At least, she was intrigued by the idea. But the great lump lunged, wrapping his arms around her waist, as if trying to hold her down to the meaningless, beans-and-toast life he clearly enjoyed.

"Don't!" The lump cried. "He's an alien! He's a thing!"

_Oi_ , he thought, glaring at him. "He's not invited," he shot back emphatically. Not till he grew up and learned a thing or two about being polite. His gaze flickered to the girl again. "What do you think? You could stay here. Fill your life with work and food and sleep. Or you could go anywhere…"

Rose considered. But clearly she wasn't stupid. "Is it always this dangerous?"

"Yeah," he admitted before he could stop himself.

Interested…but wary. "Yeah, I can't." She shook her head, glancing down at the weight at her waist. "I've got to find my mum and someone's got to look after this stupid lump, so…"

She trailed off, looking apologetic. Right. Well, he thought she would be perfect for a companion, but then what did he know? Daft, old mad man that he was, not everyone would be interested in living his life of danger. And it was clear that she had people depending on her, she couldn't just flit away. Who was he to take her away to parts unknown, just out of a selfish whim?

"Okay," he replied, hiding the dejection that edged cool acceptance. "See you around."

With that he went back inside, closed the door, and didn't look back.

"Well then, new places to go, things to do," he sighed, rubbing his hands together as he shrugged inside his battered, leather coat. "Could do with a pizza after all, might bit peckish, perhaps Naples, 19th century. Try one of the first ones? Or perhaps the New Roman Empire, give one of those a try…"

Levers flicked, dials spun, the time rotor ground its way to life, and he was off and running. There was something to do, he was sure. And yes, it would have been nice to do it with a companion, a young, bold, vivacious thing to egg him on. Well…he'd been doing this alone for a while. What was another century…or three…or forever?

The TARDIS stopped. He blinked at his console in surprise. He hadn't even bothered to put coordinates in yet, hadn't decided if he wanted thick or thin crust. But the old girl stopped, still as he frowned at his computer monitor. Where had she taken him now?

The same alley, the same sirens, the same lump, and the same girl. He frowned. He hadn't wanted to go here. He didn't give second chances. She said no, that was that. She had a mum, she had a lump, and she had her television, and she certainly didn't want pizza with him in 19th century Naples….

Or did she?

_Rasillon_ , he was old and thick! A space machine, yeah, sure, okay that might take you to see the stars, but a time machine that could take you anywhere, any when to see those stars. Now that was something entirely different. He stormed to the door, flinging it open to blink at Rose frowning in hopeful confusion outside.

"By the way," he called out cheerily, "did I mention it also travels in time?"

With that he walked away, leaving the door open for her. He didn't know why she would come back, only that she would. And he waited, as rubber footsteps hit asphalt and finally ran inside of the TARDIS. The doors closed behind her, he flicked the lever, and the time rotor came to life. And he smiled at her across the console.

"Right then, Rose Tyler, you tell me, where do you want to go?"


	7. A Bit of Showing Off

It had been so long since he felt the need to impress anyone. But really, she egged him on, when it came down to it, she was to blame, standing there with her tongue in her teeth, her wicked gleam in her eyes, and the provoking way she arched one of those eyebrows that was so much darker than her hair. He couldn't help himself. So he decided to escalate what could have been a simple trip into the future into a trip to the restaurant at the end of the universe.

Well…more a pleasure platform, really…and not so much the end of the universe as much as Earth. But the nibbles were killer, and the poshest, most interesting people always showed up at these events, which was great for a laugh or three. And he highly doubted Rose Tyler of the Powell Estates in London had seen anything nearly as weird as what she would find at this event.

The Doctor couldn't help the indulgent smile as she ran down the ramp she had run up just minutes before, knowing that she had just stepped from grimy, 21st century London into Wonderland. He cherished that moment, really, always had with all of his companions; all the way back to Barbara and Ian, up through Sarah, even with young and destructive Ace. There was that glimmer in the eye, that look of disbelief and delight, the peculiar human trait of not fully believing something could be possible, but secretly deep down hoping it was and finding joy in it when it came true. He sort of felt like Father Christmas every time one of his companions opened that door for the first time.

He indulgently watched the blur of gold and gray run down the steps towards the observation window, like a child eager to press her nose out to see what was there. Rose Tyler, simple human girl, hadn't seen anything more remarkable than a new chippy on her world, and here she was getting ready to witness something that no one she knew living would ever get to see.

"You lot, you spend all your time thinking about dying, like you're going to get killed by eggs or beef or global warming or asteroids." Not that those things weren't going to kill them, he reasoned, but why worry about it to the point of obsession? "You never take time to imagine the impossible. That you survive."

Survive and thrive. That was the key strength of the human race, one of the most tenacious the universe had ever seen. "This is the year five point five slash apple slash twenty six. Five billion years in your future, and this is the day…"

He paused and looked at his wristwatch. Not that it was a proper one, mind, he could tell the time perfectly without it, but it did provide a rather dramatic effect.

"Hold on," he murmured, before glancing back up. Even as he did so, the sun turned red-orange, throbbing and flaring angrily over an unprotected planet Earth.

"This is the day the sun expands," he smiled gleefully, glancing at Rose. "Welcome to the end of the world!"

Her response was to simply look at him as if he were daft.

"What? Don't believe me?"

"My first trip in your time and space machine, and you bring me to see the Earth get destroyed?"

He thought it was impressive. "Can't deny it's a time machine if I bring you to see the end of all things, now can you?"

She shrugged, them smiled, a broad one, full of teeth and mischief. She turned to watch the spinning, blue orb down below them. He stood, watching it with her. Humans, so preoccupied with death and dying, so few of them ever remembered that their planet too had a birth and would have a death. Had it even occurred to her? Somehow, he doubted that, or if it did it was one of those far off concepts that she had filed away under, "Not Bloody Likely In My Lifetime," and had left it at that. Well, everyone needed to have their horizon's expanded just a bit, and it was time for him to blow Rose Tyler's completely out of proportion.

He leaned in and nudged her, a grin spreading across his face. "So, care for a bit of exploring?"

She turned, warm eyes wide as she realized that there was more to this adventure than simply staring at her home underneath her feet. "You think we can?"

"Why not? Who's to stop us?"

"I don't know? people?" She shrugged, smirking as he rolled his eyes. "What, I don't know anything about the year five point five slash…why apple?"

"Why not apple? Better than pear," he reasoned cheerfully, tugging her arm and pulling her alongside of him. "Not as good as banana, but who knows, as apple starts with A and banana with B, maybe they will pick that next."

Her only response was to stare at him quizzically.

"Are you always this mad?"

He pretended to stop and think about it a bit. "Yeah, usually. Come along, Rose Tyler!" He laughed, making sure to whip out his sonic screwdriver and lock the TARDIS as they wandered past. "Let's go see what trouble we can find."


	8. Could Use With A Car Park

Honestly, so picky about where to stick the TARDIS? It was a blue box, how much space did it take? It wasn't as if anyone was using the bloody gallery at the moment, and the old thing was unobtrusive enough. Stupid, bloody niceties! It wasn't as if he'd taken a piss in the potted plant or anything.

" _OiM/i >, now, careful with that!" The little, blue members of staff wheeled it out, grunting and muttering as they did. "Park it properly. No scratches!"_

_The ringleader of the brigade passed him a ticket that said "Have a Nice Day" on it. Well, some things don't change in five billion years._

_"Right! Thanks." He nodded at the bunch as they took off, he wondered briefly where Rose had gotten. Not ten minutes into their first adventure and she was already wandering off. He'd have to reiterate the rules to her. Wait, check that. He didn't think he had iterated the rules just yet. Yes, well, he'd have to remind her not to wander off. Good way of getting herself killed, imprisoned, or accidentally married off._

_Where in the world did she get off too?_

_Well, if he had a guess, and he believed he was fairly good at this deductive reasoning thing, he would say that Rose was likely doing what any human who was overwhelmed in a new place would do. She was hiding in a quiet corner, far away from all the strangeness, likely brooding, and perhaps looking for something familiar to her. That left the observation galleries._

_He didn't have to wander far. After jiggling the doors of the first two, calling her name, he wandered into the third and found her exactly where he had expected, staring over the dying planet that had been her home five billion years ago._

_"What do you think?' He called, settling beside her, earning a wry look from her as she lifted her shoulders._

_"Great…yeah, fine. Once you get past the slightly psychic paper."_

_He knew that look, that tone of voice. He'd seen it on every companion who had crossed his TARDIS' door. And yeah, he could understand, he supposed, it was a bit like wandering into fairyland. You go from your safe and normal to blue skinned people, and it was a lot to wrap a tiny, human brain around._

_"They're just so…alien. The aliens are alien," Rose clarified, her fingers shaping as she tried to express herself to him. "You look at 'em and they're…alien."_

_What did she expect in space, a bevy full of runway models? "Good thing I didn't take you to the Deep South," he quipped. Now there were some aliens. He once met a woman in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina with no teeth, no shoes, and spitting tobacco into a tin bucket. But she was mean with a twenty-two. And it was the best rabbit stew he had ever had on any planet in any time._

_"Where are you from?" She asked, slipping that in without his notice. Alerts went off as he automatically shrugged and flashed his manic smile._

_"All over the place," he brushed off handily._

_She frowned, trying to puzzle it all out. "They all speak English."_

_Oh, yes, that part. "No, you just hear English. It's a gift of the TARDIS. The telepathic field gets inside your brain and translates." Hell of a lot better than that Bablefish. The idea of shoving some sort of creature into his ear gave him the willies._

_The TARDIS might as well have been a Babelfish for the look Rose was shooting him. "It's in my brain?" She suddenly looked as if she wished to scrub it out now. That wasn't very nice, the old girl was always very polite in people's brains._

_"Well, in a good way," he reasoned defensively._

_"Your machine gets inside my head," she continued, ignoring him. "It gets inside and it changes my mind and you didn't even ask?"_

_He blinked. She sort of had a point, he supposed. "I didn't think about it like that." He never had, really. Problem with being a telepathic alien, you just assume that's how the universe works. You forget there are other beings out there that don't like their thoughts being prodded._

_Except no one but the TARDIS prodded his thoughts anymore._

_"No," Rose flashed at him, suddenly angry. "You were too busy thinking up cheap shots about the Deep South. Who are you, then, Doctor? What are you called? What sort of alien are you?"_

_The conversation he wanted to avoid. Why did she have to make this so personal?_

_"I'm just the Doctor," he replied, throwing himself upwards as his answer only served to antagonize her more._

_"What planet?"_

_"Well, it's not as if you'll know where it is!" Nor would she ever know. It was gone, burned, and he had watched it. He had lit the fire._

_"Where are you from?" Her voice was shrill behind him, bouncing off the marble, and he had to wonder why it was he thought she would be such a good companion. Twenty-minutes on and she's digging into his secret life?_

_"What does it matter," he barked back in frustration._

_"Tell me who you are," she insisted. Anger roared in his ears with the ringing sound of silence…the emptiness where millions of his kind once stood._

_"This is who I am, right here, right now, all right," he snapped, the brewing rage, the aching void that always simmered just under the surface brimming up for just a minute, flashing itself to this child who so barely understood a minute part of the universe. "All that counts is here and now, and this is me."_

_For all the rage, all the anger, all the resistance, the girl didn't even flinch. Instead she lifted her chin, irritation flashing in her gaze. "Yeah, and I'm here too because you brought me here. So just tell me."_

_Over the loudspeaker the ethereal voice of Platform One announced the imminence of Earth's death and he seethed. Soon it too would burn and fade. It would exist as nothing more than a memory, a legend. Just like Gallifrey. This girl, who had only ever had the security of her tiny flat in her dilapidated neighborhood in twenty-first century London, she had never known what it was like to be one of the mightiest of races, for all that he despised them for it. She would never know what it was like to stand and watch them fall and then to knowingly end it all. She sat there, staring up at him, the last of the Time Lords, thinking that her tiny, human existence could possibly understand any of what he had been through?_

_Rose sighed, standing to move beside him, as he turned from her to glower at the doomed planet below. "All right," she reasoned amicably. "As my mate Shareen says, don't argue with the designated driver."_

_Out of her front pocket she pulled out her tiny, mobile phone. "Can't exactly call for a taxi. There's no signal." As if to demonstrate, she held it up in front of the window, waving it like people do with mobile phones on Earth when looking for service. "We're out of range…just a bit."_

_He thought about smiling in response. But instead, he decided to call a truce a different way. "Tell you what." He snagged her phone and pulled it apart. He knew he had stuck in his pocket somewhere a trans-dimensional transponder, nicked it off a bargain vendor at a planet-sized flea market not long ago. He thought it would come in handy._

_"With a little bit of jiggery pockery…." He fit the transponder to the battery and pulled out his sonic screwdriver._

_"Is that a technical term, jiggery pockery," she teased. He smiled. Clearly all was forgiven._

_"Yeah, I came first in jiggery pokery. What about you?"_

_"No, I failed hullabaloo," she grinned, eyes bright. She played along. And somehow, that eased the tension in his chest as he handed her back the phone._

_"There you go."_

_She frowned first at it at first, and then dialed, holding it up tentatively to her ear. Clearly, at the other end of the line, five billion years in the past, her mother had picked up. He watched as they chatted, Rose in utter amazement as her mother prated about on whatever mothers did. When she rang off, she looked up at him in utter amazement._

_And in that moment, he found he couldn't hold her needling him against her._

_"Think that's amazing? You want to see the bill."_

_"That was five billion years ago." She blinked, a frown forming. "So, she's dead now. Five billion years later my mum's dead."_

_Well, if she wanted to go all pessimistic on him all of the sudden. "Bundle of laughs you are," he muttered._

_Before she could formulate a reply, the space station beneath their feet began to shake._

_"That's not supposed to happen."_

_Rose, who had never been off the ground her entire life, let alone in space, stared fearfully out the window. "Something wrong, then?"_

_"Yeah," he replied bluntly, nodding towards the gallery door. "And I think the two of us should go find out, don't you?"_

_"Hell of a lot better than me sitting here while you figure it out," she replied, falling into step beside him. "Your life always like this?"_

_"Like what?" He had no idea what she meant._

_"You know…you crash a futuristic party, something goes wrong, there's a mystery to solve?"_

_"No," he replied as they wandered back down the hallway towards the main area. "Believe it or not, sometimes I have quiet, boring, very average days too."_

_Not often, but yeah, he had them._

_"Clive said that you leave death and destruction in your wake." He could hear the hint of carefulness in her voice. Even now, she was trying to work him out, like a puzzle. He supposed she was going to keep doing that, it was what humans tried to do, to understand what was around them._

_"And who is Clive to think he knows me so well?"_

_"Some nutter I met who had a website dedicated to you." She grinned up at him. "You have fans."_

_"Wonderful," he snapped as the doors to the main room opened. Fans…he had fans? What in he hell was that about? Fans?_

_He couldn't help it if trouble seemed to find him wherever he went. It just seemed to appear._


	9. Death and Chips

Perhaps it had been a tad bit cruel bringing Rose to see the end of the Earth her first time out. He'd been so busy showing off, so full of himself, so callous to the idea of death and dying, he hadn't thought about it. Not really, he realized. In some ways he had been as flippant about the entire thing as Cassandra was about the lives she took. Everything has its time. Everything dies.

But it wasn't Rose Tyler's time, not for a while yet.

He watched her as she stood by the window, motionless against a backdrop of burning bits of asteroid. It was all that was left of the place she currently called home. The very Earth that had been beneath her feet now spun lazily around the swollen sun, without even a sign that they had once belonged to a teeming planet, with a history rich and full and lush.

He thought of Gallifrey.

"The end of the Earth," she sighed, staring at it all in sad wonder. "It's gone. We were too busy saving ourselves. No one saw it go. All those years, all that history, and no one was even looking. It's just…"

She trailed off, and the Doctor's hearts ached. He knew that pain so well, that sense of wanting someone to have noticed, to have seen. His home had long ago faded into legend. No one was there to see it die, save him. At least Earth would be remembered, if nothing else by her descendants who filled the galaxy and scattered through the stars, taking the story of their home with them. His people were as dead as the planet he had called home.

He was all that remained.

"Come with me," he gently called her, leading her away from the sorry sight. The TARDIS stood waiting patiently for them in the loading area, her hum comforting as he unlocked the doors and let Rose silently in.

He pulled up the coordinates quickly as Rose huddled on the dilapidated jump seat, wrapping her arms around herself. She hardly noticed as the time rotor came to life, but blinked as soon as it stopped, glancing curiously over at him.

"It's exactly twelve noon on the day that I met you in London," the Doctor said, nodding at his monitor. "No where near your shop, can't cross your timeline, but it's home."

Rose stirred, curious as she shuffled to the door. It was a busy street corner near the financial district. People teemed back and forth between office buildings on lunch breaks. Somewhere a baby was crying. A man was laughing and another was hawking the latest edition of one of the tabloids. And in the middle of it all Rose stopped and stared, listening.

The Doctor followed, watching her. Oh yes, life had left the Earth long before it actually met its end, but that hadn't stopped Rose Tyler from mourning it. She had compassion in spades. But there was life yet on Earth, there would be for a long time and well after it ceased to exist. Her people had a future. His did not.

"You think it'll last forever," he sighed, glancing at the teeming people, the swarming cars, the signs of life all around him. "People and cars and concrete. But it won't. One day, it's all gone. Even the sky."

The flaming sky, the fields of red, the silver mist of trees on the mountains beyond…

"My planet's gone," he murmured, turning to look at her, answering the question he couldn't before. "It's dead. It burned, like the Earth. It's just rocks and dust before its time."

Perhaps that was why he had taken her there. Perhaps he needed her to understand.

"What happened," she asked, curiosity and sympathy filling her question.

"There was a war and we lost." Everyone lost, Dalek, Time Lord, everyone…

"A war with who? What about your people?"

"I'm a Time Lord." The words ached as they tumbled out, the first time he had ever said it since that horrible day so long ago. "They're all gone. I'm the only survivor. I'm left traveling on my own 'cause there's no one else."

Not Susan, not Romana, no one else….

"There's me," Rose offered simply. She smiled up at him, so kind, so open, it seemed so obvious to her that she could stand there and fill the aching void left in his life.

"You've seen how dangerous it is," he cautioned. "Do you want to go home?"

A part of her hoped that she would, for her own sake. She was too young and fragile for the sort of life he led and too innocent to be around a man like him, a killer, a murderer, a man with blood on his hands. But there was that other part of him, the sad, broken, lonely part of him that desperately hoped she would stay.

She considered carefully. Rose Tyler may be young but she knew the weight of this, of what it could mean. "I don't know," she began, indecisive. "I want…oh!"

She paused, turning around, glancing through the thick of people. "Do you smell chips?"

"Yeah." Now that she mentioned it, he did smell chips. A grin cut across his face. "Yeah!"

"I want chips," she muttered hungrily.

"Me too," he replied, realizing he had been starving even since the pizza shop and Ricky the Idiot's plastic doppelganger.

"Right then!" Rose nodded decisively. "Before you get me back in that box, chips it is and you can pay."

Well, there was that. "No money," he replied apologetically.

"What sort of date are you," she groused, grinning up at him. "Come on, then, tightwad, chips are on me. We've only got five billion years till the shops close."

Laughing she took his hand and pulled him through the crowds. And he let her do it, for once not thinking of running or hiding, but following this painfully human girl into the tiny, grease smelling chippy, with its fried foods and tired office workers. All around him, boring, mundane Earth continued, oblivious to their future, while Rose joyfully ordered. She snagging a golden, fried potato off the top of the pile that was placed in front of her on the counter.

"Oh God! That's gorgeous!" She sighed, as she swallowed. Watching her, the Doctor had to agree. It was gorgeous.

"Come, sit!" She jerked her head to a table, one with chrome and Formica and high stools. He couldn't help himself as he followed in her orbit, slipping onto one of the seats, holding the soft drinks and watching as she dug into her serving.

"Not a lot of food on that Platform One," she groused as she gratefully sipped her drink and waived him towards the golden mountain of fried goodness. He snagged one of the hot chips, his supposedly superior Time Lord stomach grumbling at the lack of food intake of late.

"Well, I suppose once the steward burned up no one was there to think of the appetizers."

That sobered Rose slightly. "All those people dead just because of Cassandra's greed?"

He noticed how she used "people" to indicate beings that she had referred to as alien only two hours before. "Greed is one of the few constants in the universe. Cassandra is no different than many beings from the dawn of time."

"I suppose," she sighed, munching on a chip while glancing at the people out of the window. "I guess you always hope in the future it will be different, that people will learn their lessons."

The Doctor watched her quietly. She had a rather optimistic view of the universe, far more than his. Had he ever been that hopeful in his life?

"So tell me about yourself, Rose Tyler?"

She blinked, staring back at him, wide eyes rolling as she shrugged. "Not much to tell about me."

"Everyone has a story," he replied, sipping at his soda and waiting. She finally blushed and grinned under his scrutinizing gaze, toying with a chip as she looked anywhere but him.

"I don't know my story isn't big or grand." She shoved the chip into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully, considering. "My mum, you met her, she raised me. Dad died years ago, accident. We've been on the estates since I was a baby, Mum could never get a job long enough to move out."

She paused, frowning as she realized what she said. "Not that Mum didn't do things to take care of me. She did hair mostly, took in people at the house, was cheap but she did a good job. She made enough to at least take care of me, that's for sure."

He couldn't help but smile softly at the simple need of a child to defend the mother she loved. "We do what we have to do to take care of our children. I wouldn't judge your mother for that." He paused. "I might judge her for coming on to me while I stood in her doorway."

Rose snickered, her face lighting up as she laughed hysterically. "Mum does that with every male who walks through the door. If you're breathing, you're eligible." She chortled, reaching a trainer clad toe to push his leg. He didn't mind.

"Well, I think I'm a bit too…alien for your Mum."

"I don't know, you haven't seen some of the men she's dated." Rose chuckled as she considered. "Mum doesn't mean much by it, though. She's lonely. She never found anyone else after Dad. Personally, I think she's always been hung up on him. But it doesn't mean she isn't human, that she doesn't want company. I mean, there's me, but I'm her daughter, yeah. It's just…not the same."

It wasn't just humans who felt that loneliness, the Doctor sighed. He knew just what Rose was speaking of, that desire to just connect with someone, however briefly, just to make it all go away for a while, to forget just how alone you were in the universe. That was the whole reason he had asked her with him, wasn't it?

"So what about this boyfriend of yours?" He decided to switch subjects before he strayed too dangerously into that nebulous area of feelings. "Planning on marrying him?"

Rose nearly choked on her soda as she swallowed. "Mickey? God…no! I don't think." She shook her head, blonde hair flying vehemently against the idea. "I mean, we are dating and everything, but we aren't…like that."

Perhaps not to her, but the Doctor had seen how his arms had wrapped around Rose's waist possessively, even if Rose hadn't. "So why are you dating him?"

She looked as if she hadn't ever considered that question before. Perhaps, being the girl that she was, she hadn't. "I don't know. I mean…Mickey has just always been around. We grew up together. He's older by a bit, but still, we always saw each other as kids. Knew his Gran, he was always just around."

"The faithful sidekick?"

"Something like that," she smiled, remembering. "Anyway, he was there for me when I needed a friend, and we sort of just fell in with each other."

"A relationship of convenience?"

She didn't like that term, but he could tell she was smart enough not to argue it. "Yeah, I guess. Mick's a great bloke, no denying it, but he was there."

"As opposed too..."

She frowned at his speculative look, something uncomfortable passing across her expression. "Don't know what you mean."

"Well, Mickey is like the comfy blanky you wrap yourself with because he's safe. Which, in my very long experience, means that there was once someone there who wasn't so safe. So fess up! Who was it?"

The Doctor hadn't spend centuries running through time and space in the universe with humans without learning something of their psychology. Rose Tyler with her guileless expression and youthful naiveté was about as easy to read as a book. Mickey the Idiot was nice enough, but he wouldn't have drawn this girl's attention without there being someone to have burned her enough to want someone easy and as devoted as a puppy.

Rose met his expectant expression mutinously for long moments, but he didn't budge. She sighed, throwing up her hands. "Jimmy Stone!"

"Jimmy Stone?" He rolled that name across his tongue, considering it as he swallowed his chip. "With a name like that either his family was in masonry or he was one of those twitting prats who thinks he can be a rock musician one day. Let me guess, he was in a band?"

Rose by this time had covered her eyes with one hand in seeming embarrassment, peeking behind fingers. "Yeah," she squeaked.

"Ahhh, and how old were you?"

"Sixteen."

"And I would be right in guessing this is where the A-levels went?"

"Look, he said he loved me and that I was his muse."

"Of course, that's what I would say if I was young, stupid, and played a guitar in a band. Easy way to pick up the women."

"Are you going to sit there and make fun of me for the rest of the afternoon?" She frowned in deep mortification and irritation at him.

"I could, but really, no. But it does tell me something about you."

"It does?" She blinked mildly at him, trying to figure out what in the world it possibly could say. Realization slapped her in the face then. "You mean, all this, you were interviewing me?"

Very good…very clever. "Sort of. Can't have some crazed, ax murderer in my ship. She gets a bit tetchy about that."

"You were trying to figure out if I was sane enough to travel with you?"

"I wouldn't say sane, not in this life I lead." He leaned on the table, pushing aside the rest of his chips. "But I did learn this, Rose Tyler. You are a young, sheltered girl, trapped by circumstances, whose always wanted something more out of this universe than what it has dealt for you, am I right?"

His observations hit home. She stared at him, mouth slightly open, half in fear, half in amazement. "I don't hate my life."

"I didn't say you did. But you, Rose, are far too brave, clever, and compassionate for this sort of place. So when a mad man in a blue box arrives and offers you the universe, you took it. May have blinked for a moment. Who can blame you? A lonely mother whose always depended on you, a boyfriend who is a faithful lapdog, these are things you felt you needed to stay for, at least for a minute. But there's that part of you, that part who wanted to run away with Jimmy Stone, who just wants for once in her life to be something bigger, to do something grander, isn't that right?"

She nodded, ever so imperceptibly.

"Right," he grinned back at her, the mad, take-the-universe-by-storm grin. "You ever been to Naples?"

If his non sequitur confused her, she quickly recovered. "Errr…no."

"The pizza there is amazing." He slid off the stool as Rose glanced at her half-eaten chips. "What? Not in the mood for pizza?"

"Well, I just have eaten. But I haven't gone to Italy." She cocked her head, a slow smile crossing her face. "When in Italy?"

"I don't know? Could do Renaissance, but that's a bit violent. Imperial times were too mad, like going to Vegas without the Elvis impersonators, and then there is that pesky volcano. Could do more recent times." He realized he was prattling and glanced sideways at her. "You up for another adventure, Rose Tyler? Danger and all?"

He held out his hand to her. It was a simple gesture. One anyone might make to help a lady off a stool. But it was so much more for him. And she stared at it for only a fraction of a second. Then she slipped her own, slightly greasy fingers in his, warm and eager.

"Right! Off to the past, Rose Tyler! Feeling up for it?"

Her smile was brilliant as she hopped to the floor beside him.

"With you? Anywhere!"

He couldn't ignore the way his hearts swelled at those words, the way his grin widened ever so slightly. He simply squeezed her hand and pulled her behind, eager to show her something she had never seen before.


	10. For A Human

He'd forgotten how long the female set took in seeing to their wardrobe. Over many centuries of female companionship the Doctor had gotten used to the length of time it took the ladies to get ready for most events. From Susan to Peri, even Ace at moments, they would piddle and preen, picking through garments in the wardrobe room and fussing in mirrors till often he got bored and fell asleep. So, in keeping with that expectation, the minute he had sent Rose Tyler off to change out of her raggedy denim and jersey knit into something more respectable in late 19th century society, he had simply busied himself with something he knew would keep him occupied.

"Time to tweak that faulty circuit of yours, eh old girl," he asked the TARDIS good-naturedly. His ship didn't seem nearly as amused by the idea. Her lights dimmed and he got the impression of a deep, long-suffering sigh from her.

"You know you need it," he muttered, opening the grating to delve into the mass of metal and wiring that served as his beautiful ship's working circuitry. Very little of it, well, practically none of it was original. Like his face, the inside of his ship had changed drastically over the centuries, though bits of pieces of it could be found all over the TARDIS in nooks and crannies. Sometimes he suspected she just changed things on a whim. Like any woman, she kept the ability to look different decidedly her prerogative. Yet the console change had been, more than anything, a reflection of the same trauma that he himself had gone through. The TARDIS had pared herself down to bare coral and metal. Gone was the neat white and chrome that he had gotten her in. Now, just like he was, she was stripped down to her most basic elements, her most necessary parts. The only thing that stayed constant was the console itself. Even that now was a mish-mosh of odds and ends he used to make the old girl go. Not much of her had been left after the Time War and he had tried to make do with what he could find and pilfer to make her run. What had been a highly tuned lever before was merely something he stole off of a tram on one world he visited. A button he nicked from a child's toy replaced a sensor light that had gone missing sometime during the war. The TARDIS was now a patchwork of different bits and bobs all just trying to stay together long enough to keep running. And whether she liked it or not, she had things that needed tweaking, lots of things. So much of her had never fully healed over from the war, and she needed a firm hand in these matters. His ship would rather ignore it than let him try to fix it until the matter got so bad that it had to be addressed. And frankly, if he was going to be the only Time Lord left in existence he'd rather not have to be stuck in an awkward situation with a broken TARDIS trying to figure out how he was going to get himself out of near certain arrest, torture, or death. And now that he had Rose with him that was doubly paramount.

Speaking of Rose, what was taking her? Nearly as soon as the thought came to his mind he could hear footsteps in the hallway, heeled shoes rattling against the grate. He glanced up, still half expecting to see Rose in tatty jeans, and was stunned to find something else standing before him. Where the dress came from, he didn't know, his many companions over the years had left things. It could have been Victoria's or Leela's, or something Sarah had stowed away and forgotten. The full, satin skirts were perhaps a bit more pinky that proper ladies would have worn. The neckline perhaps a bit too daring with its off the shoulder sleeves. But in that moment such idiosyncrasies didn't seem to matter. The girl who had left the room had come back a proper, high-class lady. And she was staring at him, amber colored eyes filled with apprehension as she tried not to laugh. Rose Tyler, the girl who lived in jeans and t-shirts, clearly had no idea how breathtaking she could be when she bothered to realize she was a lovely, young woman.

"Blimey," he breathed, eyes wide up at her, startled by her fresh-faced beauty as she shot him an accusing look.

"Don't laugh," she smirked, obviously feeling utterly ridiculous. And she shouldn't! _Rassilon,_ she shouldn't, not with the anticipation dancing in her expression and the wonder at what might be just outside the TARDIS's closed doors.

"You look beautiful," he tried to assure her. But it occurred to him how he had sounded, breathless and gaping like a schoolboy at the Academy. So of course he had to qualify it. "Considering."

Him, a 900-year-old Time Lord, getting all twitter-patted by a pretty young girl in a lovely, period dress? Not the first time he'd played dress up with one of the companions. What in the universe was wrong with him?

"Considering what?" One dark eyebrow rose, whether in challenge or honest confusion was hard to tell.

"That you're human," he reeled off flippantly. He hoped to hell it covered his gaffe while not insulting her. He was rewarded with a bemused smirk.

"I think that's a compliment." She eyed him critically though. "Aren't you going to change?"

"I've changed my jumper," he replied defensively looking down at the soft, knit material. Honestly, he never changed. No one paid him a bit of mind anyhow. He could be wearing that circus tent he used to call a coat in his sixth life and no one would notice. "Come on!" He pulled himself out from under the grating, but Rose stopped him, eagerness lighting her expression.

"You stay there. You've done this before. This is mine!"

With rustle of satin skirts she was at the door, opening it up. She stepped gingerly into the snow outside, her eyes filled with wonder. And for his part, the Doctor couldn't stop staring at her. Watching her as she took in the world, realizing that indeed that had just slipped from her twenty-first century life to a time that existed over a hundred years before her birth. She opened the doors and took tentative, ginger steps to the world outside.

"Rose Tyler," he intoned from the doorway. "Welcome to the 19th century."

The grin that spread across her face dazzled the cold, December night beyond.

"I'm really in the past?"

"Yep," he replied, shoving hands into his leather pockets, trying to resist the urge to grin at her as she twirled briefly in the snow. "It is the 19th century. The age before automobiles, computers, and mobile phones, high tech is the new transatlantic cable that allows messages to be wired from New York to London, and the world is lit by gas light."

"This is so weird." She giggled, staring at him with a face full of wonder. "So, right now, we're in Naples?"

Ahhh…that. He frowned, glancing around. Naples wouldn't be this cold this time of year. Sure, a December breeze off the Mediterranean was no picnic in the winter, but snow wasn't a common sight there. Buildings were the wrong architecture and if it were really Christmas there would be mass going on somewhere. But there was something else in the air here. It didn't taste right. It didn't feel right. He wasn't about to tell Rose that. Not when she was so excited about the very idea.

"So," he chirped up, grinning like a loon. "Why don't we go about, see what there is to be seen."

Rose took his arm, small hands wrapping around the leather. "And what if there is nothing to be seen? It's Christmas Eve, after all."

"Well, then, we will hope then that something interesting finds us."

"You hope for things like that?"

"Sure, makes life fun!"

"You are so mad," Rose laughed, but it hardly seemed to bother her. "Let's just hope whatever it is no one gets killed this time?"

"That's the holiday spirit, Rose!" He trudged off into the busy, chilly streets and hoped he could figure out where the hell they were and just how dangerous it was.


	11. If These Walls Could Talk

She was safe! That was all that mattered to him at the moment. Well, the situation at hand mattered to him as well, but Rose was fine. More than fine. In fact, in a word, she was brilliant! And she was currently letting into Sneed with a fury that had the Doctor in awe, if not hopeless amusement. Her eyes flashed amber fire as she snapped at him for copping a feel, which made the older man flush in a way that hinted to a certain truth in the matter. Rose Tyler may look like a lovely, flush young lady of property, but in her heart she was an estate raised guttersnipe, born and bred, and tough as old boots. Poor Gwyneth the housemaid looked aghast.

He had to admit he liked that about the girl. Piss and vinegar in her veins, not just gumption. That was good because he had a feeling that Rose Tyler was going to be one of the most jeopardy friendly companions he'd ever had. Curious to a fault and full of the twenty-first century opinion she could handle anything. She hadn't thought twice about running after Sneed and Gwyneth by herself. He shouldn't have let her. What if he hadn't have been able to get to her. She could be as lifeless as the two bodies in that room.

Perhaps he would need to rethink this new relationship of his.

He should have known she was in the kitchen. Rose had no sense of Victorian propriety and would throw herself into the washing up. He could hear the voices inside, the two girls giggling. Already she had made a friend. Before he could cut in, however, Gwyneth's words spilled out, a tumble of images and things she shouldn't understand, cars and planes and Rose's London.

And the "bad wolf".

It was those words again. That phrase that had come to him just the other day - or was it hours ago now - when he had reached with his senses and had brushed against time itself. Those words? Bad wolf? And now they came up again around Rose? Why around her?

He frowned, reaching and probing mentally to the babbling girl who was uttering apologies as fast as she could to his young companion. As he did he found himself falling into the mind of Gwyneth, into her thoughts, her fears, the voices in her head, the loneliness of a girl who had grown up alone in Wales without her parents. She had been left to fend for herself. How those voices kept her company even as she was afraid of them.

It should have been obvious from the first. Gwyneth was psychic, or at least a low level one, enough she could receive from someone else who was more powerful. He wasn't even sure she was aware that he was in her head. Had it been Rose or anyone else he'd have needed to have some sort of physical contact, but Gwyneth was wide open, waiting for anyone or anything to come in. That was likely how she had picked up on Rose's thoughts. But why had she picked up on "bad wolf"?

"I can't help it," Gwyneth almost sobbed. "Ever since I was a girl. My mam said I had the sight. She told me to hide it."

"But it's getting stronger, more powerful," he cut in, causing both women to turn to him. "Is that right?"

Gwyneth nodded, looking ashamed. "All the time, sir. Every night, voices in my head."

"You grew up on top of the rift." It was simple, really. He would be surprised if much of Cardiff didn't have some sense of psychic ability. But Gwyneth was unique. "You're part of it. You're the key."

"I've tried to make sense of it sir," she bemoaned. "Consulted with spiritualists, table rappers, all sorts."

Load of charlatans and crackpots is who she had been talking to. No one who actually understood a lick of what was really happening. Still, perhaps all the tricks they had taught her weren't completely useless. They may help her to focus. And that was what he needed out of her.

"Well, that should help," he smiled. "You can show us what to do."

Rose's eyes flew up to him, staring at him as if he were a charlatan himself.

"What to do where, sir?" Gwyneth blinked up at him in mild confusion.

"We're going to have a séance!" He beamed.

Neither woman looked as if they thought that was a particularly good idea.

"A séance, sir? I haven't ever run one."

"Gwyneth, a séance is merely a crutch." He reached a long finger to tap the young maid's forehead right between her eyes. They crossed as they followed his hand. "You have an ability, Gwyneth. You can speak to these spirits. It's all in your head, right there, but you've had to find a way to control it, to fine-tune it. So, you use a séance to do it. That's all it is, a way for you to focus your mind at the task at hand."

"And you don't think it is horribly…ungodly, sir?" She blinked up at him in mild horror. Poor, sweet Gwyneth, raised on her good, Victorian, Welsh Protestantism. He likely had just scandalized her with the suggestion. Judging by the look Rose was giving him right now he had likely just scandalized her as well for a totally different reason.

"Gwyneth, the only 'ungodly' thing going on here is that Sneed has taken advantage of you for so long. Now, if we do this right, we'll figure out what these beings are and what they want. And perhaps, if we are lucky, we can find a way to end all the haunting. Now, that's nice, and good, and righteous, isn't it?"

Gwyneth seemed to be buying his logic even if Rose was cutting eyes at him. "I suppose, sir."

"Good. Now, you go get the drawing room all set up and I'll gather the others for this."

"Mr. Dickens, too?"

"Yes, him too! I think that ol' Charlie needs his mind expanded. Now, get along, we'll be up in a mo'." He rushed the girl off, even as she gave him doubtful looks over her shoulder.

He didn't need to look at Rose to see the disapproval coming at him. "A séance? Parlor tricks, is that what you are resorting to?"

"If it works," he shrugged, brushing her off casually. "And what's all this with you running off thinking your some sort of Wonder Woman?"

"I told you I was trying to stop them. You didn't say no. And don't change the subject! What do you mean Gwyneth has an ability?"

Why in the world did she think she could question him on this? "Just what I said. The girl has talent."

"Doctor, she knew about London. About my London! She saw airplanes and cars." Rose puzzled through it quickly enough. "She's psychic, isn't she?"

"Your race isn't known for being extremely gifted in that way but some of you can display a low level aptitude, yeah."

"So she was reading my thoughts?" Rose shifted uncomfortably. He remembered how she reacted to the TARDIS.

"Well, you can't blame the girl, you were likely broadcasting them rather loudly. "

"I didn't know she could read them!" Rose squawked, glancing towards the hallway where Gwyneth had disappeared. "She was just a normal girl. Course, a normal, overworked, horribly paid girl. You know she only gets eight pounds a year?"

"Welcome to Victorian Britain! No Labor to fight for the worker's rights."

"I'm just saying, Doctor, everyone her entire life has taken advantage of her. She's got no one. Her parents died. She is dependent on this Sneed fellow who doesn't treat her well and now what are we using her for?"

It wasn't often that the Doctor felt any sense of guilt for his actions, Gallifrey not withstanding, obviously. He could always shroud it in the sense of the greater good and use his great, Time Lord brain and obvious intellect as a way of dissuading large-scale protests. "No one is harming her, Rose. She just is a way for us to make contact. She's an interpreter."

"Yeah, and what if we find out that whatever these things are, they turn out to be a bigger threat than what we thought? I mean…you didn't see those bodies, Doctor. They would have killed me if you hadn't gotten to me."

That part was true. He didn't want to admit it. But his options in this were few. "If we don't, Rose, how many other bodies will they inhabit? This won't stop until they find someone they can finally communicate with."

Rose's full lips pursed. "I still don't like it. This whole…psychic thing. Letting someone into her head."

"It's not as bad as all that, Rose," he tried to reassure her. After all, he'd had people inside his head all the time once, hadn't harmed him in the slightest. Still, she didn't look convinced. He relented somewhat. "I won't make Gwyneth do anything she doesn't want to. Does that make you feel better?"

"No," she replied, a smirk lifting the corners of her mouth. "But it will have to do."

"Right!" If that was the best he could get he would take it from Rose Tyler. "Now, why don't you run off to see if Gwyneth needs any help. Just think, Rose, a séance! Not something you can say you've done in your life before! Had a séance with Charles Dickens!"

"No," she nodded in slow agreement as she turned down the hallway towards the drawing room. "Hopefully it beats the hell out of a Ouija board."


	12. Veritas Fortius

Gwyneth had only been nineteen, the same age as Rose.

No sooner than Charles Dickens had faded from view on the TARDIS monitor had Rose raced out to the wardrobe room, shouting something about "getting this bloody torture device off". She left the Doctor to amuse himself, which ordinarily would include him puttering around his ship and tweaking things she didn't like tweaking. This time, however, he found himself sinking slowly to his jump seat, his thoughts on a young woman who believed she was being the good girl her long-dead parents had taught her to be. That she was helping her angels, beings who had visited her since she was a child, beings she believed to be good. How was Gwyneth to know that the Gelth, long frustrated in their exile and afraid of dying, would turn on her the way that they had? How was she to know that they would end her young life before it began? Sweet, innocent Gwyneth, who had agreed to his madness without a second thought and she had died, because of his guilt and because of his pride.

He should have known. How many races like the Gelth had fallen through the cracks of the Last Great Time War? More than even he knew about, many whose names would never be remembered. Most at least, the lucky ones, died swift, merciful deaths or winked out of existence, their timelines shredded as if they had never been. Others, particularly high-functioning psychic species like the Gelth, were caught in purgatory, not really existing, not really dead, haunting reality as they attempted to press their way back in. So many lives lost…

He had wanted to save them, all of them, if nothing else to feel as if he had won something out of that entire, blasted, damned war. The minute he heard the Gelth's plea he had decided to let them through, to allow them to use human bodies. He alone decided, the Doctor, because that was who he was! Last of the Time Lords, the only one around with authority enough to make that sort of decision, and he had done it without hesitation. It didn't matter that he was using some young, impressionable girl or that her life might be in danger because of it. What was the life of one, nineteen-year-old girl when there was an entire race of people he could save, people he had failed once before to protect.

What was the life of poor, sweet Gwyneth?

The Doctor realized in that moment that he was old. Worse than old, he was tired. Tired, angry, guilty, used up. Never before would he have done something like this, used an innocent in this way. Oh, he had been known to manipulate more than a few of his companions to do what he wanted. And there had been those like Adric who had sacrificed themselves, and how it had hurt when they had. But this was worse even than that. He had used her. And he hadn't cared that he had. He had challenged Rose on it, had pulled rank on her, even as she had called him out on it. And he had dared to question her morality on the subject. Where was his? He hadn't known a thing about the Gelth, just had assumed they were exactly what they appeared to be, and was fully prepared to let people's bodies be inhabited just to save one last race, one more person.

He didn't hear Rose enter. Her rubber soles tread on the grating lightly. It wasn't till she sauntered in front of him, looking immensely relieved, that he noticed her presence.

"How did women stand wearing those things?" She rubbed her side under her t-shirt, wincing as she frowned at him. "Might look classy but its murder to breath in it."

The Doctor's wan smile was his only answer.

"What?" Her frown deepened as she glanced down at herself. "Did I put my shirt on backwards?"

"No," he replied succinctly, rising to move past her to the console. She blinked mildly but said nothing as she plopped down on the very seat he vacated.

"So where are we off to?"

He said nothing at first. He didn't want to say anything. He knew what would happen the moment he did.

"We haven't been to see an alien planet yet," Rose mused, prattling thoughtfully behind him. "Course, now I've gotten to see walking trees and giant heads in jars I wonder what else mad is out there to see."

His hearts ached to hear her.

"Where were you thinking next?" She was trying to get him to answer. Perhaps she could sense his disquiet.

"I was thinking that Powell Estates, London, England might be our next visit." He tried to slide it off nonchalant, to spin it with his devil-may-care charm. But it fell flat. He could tell by the silence behind him it was the last thing that Rose had expected.

"You're taking me home?"

"Yep," he responded without further explanation.

"Why? What did I do?" Her voice rang shrilly through the TARDIS as she leaped to her feet. He didn't need to see her face to know the hurt that was there. She was fairly vibrating with it. He could sense it as easily as he could sense the anger and the confusion that lay beneath it.

"Nothing," he stated honestly, finally turning to regard the hurt expression and the pained eyes. "But I gave you two trips in my magic box. Now it's time for Cinderella to go home."

"So what, that's just it? You come in, whisk me to the future and past, nearly get me killed both times, and then say, 'See ya, have a nice life'?"

"Pretty much." He turned, pretending to busy himself with the TARDIS. She wasn't buying it.

"Why the hell did you ask me along with you in the first place?"

"Thought it would be a treat after saving my life and all."

"I thought it was because it was the last of your kind and you could use a friend."

Rose had hit painfully close to the truth and she knew it. She stood triumphant as his temper simmered.

"Like you pointed out, you nearly got killed today, five times as a matter of fact, must be a record for a girl from the estates." He spun away from her, around to the other side of the console. "And as endearing as your sentiment in Sneed's morgue was, Rose, if you had died down there, it would have been my fault."

It didn't take her long to read his point loud and clear. "So what, you are taking me home for my own protection?"

He didn't answer her. He merely stared at the stupid telephone dial he had attached to the console. He counted, waited for the explosion.

"Who the hell are you to get off telling me what to do with my life?"

"I'm the Doctor." His gaze was hard and flat as it met her wounded one.

"Right, the Doctor, you have all the authority," she spat, arms crossed in challenge. "The very same one who just let all those Gelth in because it was better to use a bunch of corpses and turn them into zombies than to let an entire race of disgruntled aliens die off."

And there she hit the nail on the head. Rose was far too perceptive by half, and rage and guilt mixed to an explosive toxin within him, erupting as he whipped around the console to glare down at her. "That's right! I made that decision. I made a decision today to save a race I thought needed it at the expense of a few corpses. I made the decision to save a few lives. Was that so wrong?"

Rose didn't even flinch in the face of his ire. Her chin jutted out defiantly as her mascara caked eyes cut upwards at him. "Yeah, and how did that work out for you?"

In an instant he deflated. His shoulders slumped beneath the leather as he found himself looking anywhere but at the stupid girl standing in front of him. "What do you want me to say, Rose? That you were right and I was wrong?"

"No," she replied evenly. "I want you to simply remember that even though you are this Doctor, Time Lord, thing, that even you get it wrong sometimes. So why do you think that you can tell me to go home for my protection?"

He couldn't tell if he wanted to strangle her or shake her. So he decided to shove his hands deep into his pockets instead. "That girl, Gwyneth. She was nineteen. Same age as you. Just a kid in the grand scheme of things and now she's dead because I made a mistake."

He paused to let that sink in, finally looking up at her to see if she understood. "I made a mistake, Rose. And it cost Gwyneth her life. And I can't say I won't make mistakes again and again. You were lucky today. If Charles hadn't figured out the gas, you'd have died. Your mother, Ricky…"

"Mickey," she corrected him quickly.

"Whatever! Neither one of them would have known what became of you. You'd be dead and gone over a century before you were born, all because I made a mistake. And I can't put you in that danger, Rose."

"So what," she shrugged mildly. It was such a random gesture after his heartfelt words, a careless movement that left him baffled.

"What?" Had he missed something?

"So what," Rose replied, unfolding her hands to place on her hips. "Doctor, I could get hit crossing the street. A car could plow into my bus. I could get some weird, bird and swine flu and keel over in the street, anything could happen to me."

"Yeah, but none of those things are my responsibility."

"And I'm not yours either," she shot back firmly. "I made my decision to come on board with you. And if I want to stay, then like hell you are kicking me off! Kick me off for being stupid or for breaking a rule. Toss me for messing up timelines or accidentally starting World War III, but don't just shove me back home because you want to protect me." Her lip curled in disdain at the idea.

"You don't know what you are talking about. You're only nineteen, just a kid."

"Gwyneth was nineteen, you didn't think she was a kid. You let her make her own decision about what she wanted to do as long as it suited your purpose."

It cut and dug and he knew she threw that back at him on purpose. Whatever self-restraint he had left snapped in a flash of white, hot ire. "And I'm the one who has to live with the guilt of her blood on my hands, just like…"

And he stopped…cold. That was his secret, his one secret, the one he had no intention of ever telling Rose. He could never, ever let her know that he was a murderer, a destroyer, and the one who had led his people to the slaughter for the common good of the universe. His lips tightened against the words and bit them back, shoving him deep, down into his gut.

"Rose, you'd be far better off being somewhere that wasn't with me." It was a weak argument, the weakest. He knew it but he couldn't say more without explaining himself. And he knew as the words slipped past the iron restraint of his lips he had lost the argument.

"I think I can make that decision for myself, thanks." She sniffed, leaning against the console. "You offered to have me see the universe with you. I accepted. I don't go back on those things."

Fine…fine. The Doctor heaved a sigh from the bottom of his soul, unwilling to argue it any more. "Where do you want to go?"

She seemed to consider for a long moment, a mischievous glint forming in her eye. But the look she gave him was frank. "How about home?"

He blinked at her, his magnificent brain stuttering for just a moment. "What?"

"Home," she reiterated. "You know, Powell Estates, London, England."

"But you just said you wanted to stay?" He had just spent all that time and effort being defeated in his argument and now she wanted to leave?

The mischievousness bloomed to a full on grin, wide and bright as she laughed. "Seriously, if I'm sticking around here, I'd like to have my own clothes. No more of those corsets. And maybe let my Mum know where I'm going, yeah? That way she doesn't worry."

Right…she was having him on. "You think your mum will be okay with you taking off with some alien into outer space?"

"No," she shook her head, not seemingly concerned. "But you know, conveniently my job blew up, I'm not in uni, and I never took a gap year. So maybe this is my chance?"

Her tongue reached out between her straight, white teeth. "Besides, who needs to be hiking some mountain in South America when I could be doing it on some alien planet, right?"

He couldn't help but return her smile. This was against his better judgment, but he wanted to show her that mountain on an alien planet, to show her the universe. For now the demons of his nature had lost as he clapped his hands together and turned towards the console.

"Right," he cried, spinning dials and pushing buttons. "Well, let's set the course then for home. Let's say, oh….twelve hours after you left your lump in the alley."

"Twelve hours? Feels like longer." Rose moved out of his way as he danced around, pushing and prodding things.

"Yeah, well, it has been, but it's funny how time works that way. I can pick you up in one place in time and set you down in another." As if to emphasize his words, the TARDIS gave a gentle thud, as if finally coming down somewhere. The Doctor turned to her, his manic grin spreading across his face.

"So, go get your stuff, your sparkling make-up, your favorite stuffed object, and be back here in an hour."

"Seriously?" Rose blinked at the doors, her head shaking ruefully. "I don't know if I'll ever get used to that."

"Hop to it, we haven't got all day."

With a grin and a flash of blonde she made her way to the doors with him close behind.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note, some of the dialogue here isn't mine, obviously, as there is one particular phrase I wasn't keen on. I kept it as it was in the episode, but I'm not thrilled that Davies had it in there.

Nine hundred years of existence and the Doctor had never been slapped by someone's mother, not even when he deserved it.

"Owww," he whinged as he prodded the bruised jaw and glared petulantly across the depressingly gray blocks of functional, institutional estate apartments, wondering what in the hell had gone wrong. He had just been there the day before in his own personal time. In Jackie Tyler's timeline it had been a year, one without her only daughter in it. He replayed the calculations and coordinates in his head. He had never been so bad as to be a whole year off before. What in the hell happened?

"She got you good, didn't she?" Rose at least looked a tad sympathetic, biting her lower lip as she squinted up at his face. "Should have warned you. Mum has a mean right hook."

"And a filthy mind, thinking I'm taking liberties with her daughter." That bothered him more than he cared to admit.

"You can't blame her. This day and age there's all sort of sex-crazed psychos out there making off with young women. I was gone a whole year for her. She must have thought I was carried off to be a sex slave."

The Doctor snorted, glaring at no one in particular, but as Rose was standing in front of him she got the brunt of it. "You humans, everything is sex with you."

"And it isn't for Time Lords?" Rose arched a dark eyebrow up at him in playful way he wasn't sure he liked.

"Time Lords can manage to think about more than one thing at a time. Multi-tasking, that's us."

"So you do think about sex?" Rose snickered as she moved to sit on the wall next to him. The Doctor rolled his eyes, wondering briefly how it was humans put up with their own hormones sometimes.

"Think, occasionally, yes, but I'm not some raving madman out to carry off young women to have my way with." He couldn't believe Jackie Tyler would assume that of him. "I'll have you know I traveled for a while with another girl from the estates, not much younger than you. She was perfectly safe in my company."

It was the first time he had ever mentioned another companion to Rose, who pounced on it with all the curiosity she displayed when he dropped any hint of information about himself. "So you've traveled with others?"

He thought of Ace. She and Rose would have a lot in common. Estate-born girls, the pair of them. The difference was Ace was now likely Jackie Tyler's age, or close to it. She had been nearly old enough to be Rose's mother when he knew her. He wondered, not for the first time with his companions, what had become of her. And like always he decided it was best to let the past lie there. He had a feeling that Dorothy had no desire to see the Professor and his magic box again.

"I've been around for a while, picked up a stray or two along the way." He didn't elaborate. He couldn't really say why. It wasn't exactly a secret. But he knew if he mentioned the others, all the other young people who had traveled with him, Rose would want to know about them and their stories. And he just couldn't bring himself to think of them, to remember who he was once, before the war, before he was the hard, angry man standing on top of a dilapidated, gray estate.

"So is this what you do, then, just pick up people like me and show them the universe?" Rose's tone was casual, but her words were cautious. As much as she may have thought her mother over-reactionary he could tell that Jackie's suspicions were getting the better of her daughter.

"Yeah," he shrugged, glancing sideways at her. "Rose, I'm not some lecherous old man, out to seduce young women. I'm…just…"

He crossed his arms across himself, helplessly searching for someway of explaining himself. He didn't need to. Rose seemed to get it anyway.

"You're lonely." She nodded, crossing her legs as she perched up beside him, leaning on an elbow as she watched him. "I get it. You're alone. And I think that Mum would get that too."

The last person in this universe he wanted understanding him was Jackie. She hit him. Hard! "I'm not explaining it to her. Don't do domestics."

"Domestics?" Rose snorted, laughing at his sour face. "What, having a conversation with my mother is 'domestic'?"

"Getting slapped in the face certainly is."

"I think you had that coming. If you weren't rubbish at flying we wouldn't be in this mess."

"Rubbish at flying? I took you to the end of the Earth, and you call me rubbish?"

"Yeah! Naples, Christmas, 1860. Ring a bell?"

His response was to only glowering at the graffiti on the far, concrete wall. Rose snickered beside him.

"Come on, Mum deserves an explanation."

"And what one do you plan to give her?" The Doctor turned to shoot her a pointed glance. "She begged you in the kitchen to tell her and you couldn't then."

"I don't know." She threw up her hands in guilty despair. "I can't tell her. I can't even begin. She's never going to forgive me. And I missed a year." She glanced speculatively at him. "Was it good?"

He thought about it, recalling what he knew about 2005 AD on Earth. Nothing spectacular that he could recall. "Middling."

"You're so useless," she muttered in mock disgust.

"Well, if it's this much trouble, are you going to stay here now," he shot back peevishly. He didn't like thinking about the fact that he hoped she didn't.

"I don't know," she sighed, uncertain. "I can't do that to her again, though."

He could hear the indecision in Rose's voice, the torn conflict. She wanted to go with him, to see the stars. And she couldn't quite cut herself from her mother just yet either. He could sense the idea of a compromise coming, and he had to nip that in the bud. "Well, she's not coming with us."

"No chance?" Rose only half-heartedly wondered.

"I don't do families." He'd been too rubbish with his own.

Rose grinned, shaking her head in wonder. "She slapped you!"

"Nine hundred years of time and space and I've never been slapped by someone's mother!"

"Your face," Rose laughed at him, reveling in his embarrassment and pain.

"It hurt," he protested without much sympathy from his companion.

"You're so gay," she teased, her eyes bright as she regarded him. "When you say nine hundred years?"

"That's my age," he replied, throwing it out there, a morsel about him, curious to see her reaction. He wasn't disappointed. She blinked slowly at him.

"You're nine hundred years old?" It seemed to sink in to her then. He may look like a bloke in his forties to her. But he was a creature who was ancient by comparison to her standards.

Forty-five? Really? Did he look that old?

"Yeah," he assured her. He wondered vaguely if that bothered her.

"Mum was right," Rose exhaled, laughing at the utter strangeness of it all. "That is one hell of an age gap."

She snickered, shaking her blonde head ruefully. "Every conversation with you goes mental." She shrugged her shoulders, thoughtful suddenly. "There's no one else I can talk to. I've seen all that stuff up there. The size of it, and I can't say a word. Aliens and spaceships and things, and I'm the only person on planet Earth who knows they exist."

No, he thought to himself, there were others. Somewhere out there was every companion who he ever had who remained on Earth, from Ian and Barbara up to Ace, and all of UNIT. They all knew the truth. They had all seen the same things. And hell, at this point, they could probably create their own Doctor support group. But before he could say anything about how she wasn't alone, a long, deep, horn blast sounded behind them. Sort of like a tugboat, a little like a foghorn, but certainly loud and out of place on a tranquil, spring morning in South London. He and Rose turned, just in time to see a giant spacecraft whip over their heads, teetering erratically as it sped over them, towards the Thames River and the heart of London in the distance. They watched as it weaved around drunkenly, swirling from the Tower Bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral, till it clocked the side of Big Ben at Westminster and slammed unceremoniously down, landing in what the Doctor presumed was the river. The earth rumbled and the building they stood on shook as a black plume of smoke rose up into the gray skies in the distance.

He turned to look at Rose who stared back, eyes wide, frowning in utter annoyance.

"Oh, that's just not fair," she protested.

Clearly she wasn't the only one to know about aliens now.

"What is it?" She turned to him, the only alien she knew personally, to answer it.

"Don't know," he replied vaguely, trying to catalogue the various aspects of the ship that he noticed as it screamed overhead. "I'd have to get a closer look at it. The ship is common enough, sold all over the universe, could be any race. Sort of the Toyota of space ships."

"They have a Toyota of spaceships?"

"Why not, everyone needs a good, reliable one."

That seemed to make sense to Rose. "So, how will you be able to tell what sort of aliens it is?"

"Have to get a look."

"Like as not the police and the military will be all over it," Rose surmised, cutting a mischievous glance his way.

"Very true," he nodded sagely, watching the smoke rise in the distance. "So, means we'd have to hurry if we wanted to check it out."

"We?" She grinned, her smile wide as she arched a dark eyebrow at him. "So, you mean for me to go to?"

"Can't say you aren't as curious as I am, what with your, 'only one to see aliens' business."

"I am," she admitted, jutting her chin out towards the crash site in the distance, already being circled by helicopters, likely news ones for now till the military got their hands on it. "So how do we get there?"

"Best way I know how."

"How's that," she wondered brightly, already knowing his answer.

"We run!" He grabbed her fingers, holding them tight as he dragged her, screaming with laughter, towards the stairway door.


	14. Locked in a Cabinet

The first contact that this dumpy, little planet had to realize it was making was with the Slitheen family? Brilliant! Of all the races, all the peoples across the universe, Earth would be set on by some mercenary band of money-grubbing criminals. Ahh, just as well they didn't remember that nasty Vogon invasion of the 1970s. That had been a big enough mess, bureaucratic ingrates, but the Slitheen were merely out for fun and profit.

And worst of all, Rose Tyler was caught in the middle of it.

Not that she seemed to notice over much. She slouched in one of the important looking chairs around the large conference table, playing with a strand of fake blonde hair as she chatted with Harriet Jones. The world could possibly be ending at any moment, and there she was chatting up some random MP as if she could do nothing better right now. Which, if he admitted it to himself, there was nothing more she could do in this situation.

"So it's just you and your mother, then?" Harriet had that curious sympathy that humans seemed to employ when they knew a situation was sore subject but very much wanted to know more.

"Yeah, me and Mum." Rose nodded, frowning at the steel covered windows with vague worry. "She's out there right now with Mickey. I hope she gets someplace safe."

"And Mickey is your boyfriend?"

"Yeah…kind of." Rose eyes flickered nervously towards the Doctor as he pretended he hadn't noticed. "I've been gone for most of a year. Traveling."

"Gap year?" Harriet nodded in understanding.

"Yeah, something like that." Rose's nervous smile shifted as she changed subjects. "And you? Have a husband back home wondering what's become of you?"

"Me, no!" She laughed, tight and bright, an old hurt underneath her self-effacing smile. "No, like you, just me and my mother. She's ill now, getting on in years. She's been staying with me the last few, just to have someone to look after her."

This piqued the Doctor's interest somewhat as he tried to glance sidelong at the other woman. He could see the tears just misting in the corner of her eyes, hear the tremor in her voice. "She's out there at home by herself. I hadn't even had a chance to call her to tell her what was going on. She doesn't even know I'm here."

Rose shifted from bored teen to sympathetic listener in the space of half-a-breath, concern and empathy writ across her pretty face as she reached a hand across to the other woman's arm. She had no words. What could one say in the face of likely death? But Harriet Jones seemed to take comfort in it as she patted the girl's hand gratefully.

"The worst part - the most frightening part - in all of this isn't so much what will happen to me, but that she will be alone. There is no one else. They only had me, and Dad died years ago, and she's well up there. If I die, there's no one to take care of her."

It was a simple confession and a very human one, but it still panged the Doctor to his hearts. There was this woman, this regular woman who had her job serving the people in her district, who just came to Downing Street to talk about some political nonsense that was important to her. And now she would die because of the actions of a mercenary bunch of profiteers and her mother would never know the truth of how her daughter came to her end. That was, of course, if her mother and the rest of this planet lasted that long. He personally wanted to see that it did.

"If you'd excuse me?" Harriet rose preemptively, waving a hand towards the closet in the corner. "I think there's a loo in here somewhere, I might go see if I can find it."

She didn't stop to reply to the Doctor's quizzical look as she wandered into the closet at the far end of the room.

"The loo's outside!" The Doctor murmured after her, but the other woman didn't seem to pay any heed. Instead she marched in firmly and closed the door behind her.

"S'not why she's going in there," Rose replied, staring at him as if he was the daft one walking into closets thinking they were bathrooms.

"Then why would she lock herself in a closet?"

"Because it's the only place in this armored room where she can have a good cry away from two perfect strangers," Rose replied reasonably, frowning sympathetically at the closed door. "I understand it. Wish I could have one of those at the moment."

Trust Rose Tyler to be the one to get it when he was missing the obvious. There she was, just a kid, drug into the insanity of his life. And he had gone along with it. She had angrily demanded that he not leave without her and he'd agreed to it, and now she was caught up in something that might just kill her. He shouldn't have gone back to Powell Estates, and he shouldn't have brought her with him.

As if sensing the line of his thoughts, her eyes cut at him, brown glitters of irritation shining through the thick make up coating her lashes. "You left me."

"When?" He feigned ignorance as he busied himself with his sonic screwdriver, pretending to do something extremely important.

"Back at the flat. You left me to go find your aliens." She crossed her arms in a clear signal she was preparing to battle with him on this and he really wished she wouldn't.

"Yep." He shrugged, trying to look supremely distant and impressive with his sonic and knowing he was somehow failing.

"What? After you promised and swore to me that you wouldn't just take off and leave me?"

"What, I popped in, popped back, simple as that. Besides you were busy with your…domestics."

"Domestics?" A dark eyebrow arched upwards, and he had the distinct impression of remembered pain across his cheek. She looked disturbingly like her mother when she did that.

"Yeah, well you had to deal with Mickey the Idiot, didn't you?"

Rose's eyes rolled as she snorted. "That doesn't mean you can swan off like that and just leave me behind."

"I don't know, you nearly got a man imprisoned for your death, I think he needs an explanation."

"I did no such thing," she seethed, throwing herself forward to lean against the table, inches from his face. "You are the great git that can't tell twelve hours from twelve months."

She did have a point there. "A years a long time to carry a murder suspicion. Besides, you didn't miss much. Just a pig in a suit."

"That's not the point," she hissed, slamming back into her chair again, glaring moodily at the closet where Harriet Jones was currently crying in the dark. "The point is that you promised not to just leave without me. Now, be honest, if you knew what was going to happen here, what we were facing, would you have taken me with you?"

Taken here anywhere near this madness? No! Well…maybe. He glowered at her jutted jaw. "Is this really how you want to die then? Locked up in a room, like Harriet, without the chance of seeing your mum one last time?"

"I'd rather do that than hide at home and wonder where the hell you are and why you didn't come for me."

That stung and he didn't like it. "And what if I couldn't save you?"

Didn't he have enough blood on his hands? He didn't want her blood there as well.

"What did I tell you on the TARDIS when you tried to chuck me? After Gwyneth? I said I'm sticking around." Rose uttered this with all the false bravado a girl of nineteen who had never experienced death and dying would have. "And besides, not everything in this world is safe. If Mum has to cotton on to that eventually, so do you."

He wanted to believe her, this impossible girl, who thought she was indestructible. He wanted to think that indeed, she was indestructible as she thought she was, and that he wouldn't stand there and watch her die because of something he did. More than anything, he realized in that moment, he wanted to keep this strange girl safe. Perhaps it was for her mother, or her boyfriend, but really, he wanted to keep her safe for him. And he didn't quite understand what that meant yet or why.

Instead, he decided to change the subject. "You think she'll come out of the closet sometime soon?"

"I hope so," Rose murmured softly, glancing at the still closed door. "You know, I told Mickey you'd come back."

"What?"

"When you left, Mickey told me, and I told him you'd come back."

"You were just yelling at me for leaving you," he protested indignantly.

"Yeah, well," she shrugged, looking mildly abashed. "Didn't mean that I didn't think you wouldn't come back. Cause you promised you wouldn't leave me."

Honestly, all this fuss, just to prove a point. "Is this what traveling with you will always be like? You whinging on something just to prove a point?"

"If we live, maybe you'll find out."

There was that if. She was by far not the first of his companions who had been in danger. But just like with all the others, he very much hoped that "if" would end up on the positive column for him today and that fate would be kind to him once again.


	15. And Miles To Go Before I Sleep

Bad Wolf.

More worrisome than the fact that some snot-nosed, skateboarding urchin with a spray can had managed to gain access to his ship enough to write the words in paint across her lovely blue side was the fact that he had to choose those words. Bad Wolf. The words he had first heard echoing through space and time the moment he had taken Rose Tyler's hand. Why those words? Why in her home? Why did they link to her?

Worse - why was this slip of a girl taking over his ship?

Rose had returned from her mother's flat, a backpack over her shoulders that looked as if it carried all the means needed by a Roman centurion. He had glanced at it askance that any one human girl could need that many things on a trip. Besides, didn't the likes of Rose enjoy going shopping? But she had bored him with talk of her girlie shampoos and the particular kind of pajamas she preferred to wear and he had borne it long enough for him to show her to her room. The TARDIS of course had whipped it up. Seemed the old girl had a fondness for their most current companion as she made it pink and purple and feminine. The Doctor had quickly retreated, allowing Rose to settle in with all of the glee of a first year moving into her dorm at uni.

Then had come the mug in the sink. Honestly, she had barely finished putting glitter all over her room or whatever she was doing in there and he had gone in for a cuppa and found a worn, chipped mug with some sort of child's handwriting all over it. She had wandered in, all big eyes and excitement at having found the swimming pool, and he held it up in front of her nonplussed expression. It was her favorite mug, she replied, something she had made at some art thing years ago. Something to remind her of home.

Except this wasn't her home or anyone's home. Well, it was his home. But it wasn't for her domestics. Still, he had said nothing as she had prowled the innards of his ship. Who cared if she left puddles by the swimming pool or dripped through the corridors towards the tea garden, or left dirty feet marks at the top of the zero gravity chamber. He simply gritted his teeth and let her have at it. He finally found his wayward charge, curled up in the comfy jimjams she liked, snoozing in the library in front of a fire, a copy of Oliver Twist in hand. Perhaps - not that he would ever admit it out loud - the scene did make him smile, just a bit. He hated to think how long it had been since he had someone so young and eager on board the ship. Perhaps it had been too long. It had also been far too long since his said human companion had slept properly. Judging by her relative time, she'd been up for nearly three days. While adrenaline and excitement could keep anyone going, Rose still was just human, and so he let her sleep, pulling a warm, woolen blanket off the back of the couch and tucking her in for the time being.

Oh, to sleep the sleep of the young and exhausted.

He sighed as he settled in an armchair nearby, staring into the flickering flames as he considered his new situation. It had been some time since he had any companion on the ship. Since before the Time War and it had been since Ace since he had brought someone so young. Another girl from the estates, though admittedly Rose seemed far less broken than his troubled, former protege. A tribute to Jackie's parenting though he'd never admit it to the woman's face. What to do with a companion so young and energetic? He wondered if he knew what to do anymore. Old and broken he was, a veteran of far too many battles, filled with enough rage and anger he could choke on it. What could the universe possibly hold that would fascinate him anymore?

Of course, the universe would be endlessly fascinating to her. He glanced at the girl sleeping, and recalled the delight she took in opening the TARDIS doors on different places and different times. How easy it had been to seduce her away from her mother's Shepherd's Pie with visions of foreign planets and times, to spin fantasies of stardust and moonbeams. He had done it on purpose, of course, mostly to get out of Jackie Tyler's cooking, but because he also knew it would work. He should feel guilty about it.

He didn't.

Because, if he admitted it to himself, and he hated to do that, he wanted her to be there. He needed her there. Like a man thirsting in the desert, he needed the life, excitement, and vitality Rose brought with her, the optimism with which she faced every adventure. Hell, he needed the courage she displayed in the face of certain death and danger, that willingness to stand her ground when every fiber in his being wanted to run. Everything he thought he had lost so long ago seemed to be wrapped up in one, fragile, human girl. He had wondered if the universe were playing a grand joke on him when he met Rose. Now he was convinced of it. Can't let the angry, lonely, broken old man fade quietly into the sunset, no! Send a woman, an impossibly tempting woman, into his life and try to stir things up.

Bugger it all! Now he was going to have to keep on going on.

Well, it was his own fault, he supposed. He was the one who had taken the girl's hand and drug her along for this joy ride and then had convinced her to keep going. And he would show her all the marvelous things he had promised her and more, and hopefully, maybe, if he were very lucky, he could remember how he had felt once upon a time when the entire universe was new and he had fallen in love with it. And he would try his damndest to keep her safe, for her mother if nothing else, and someday, when she was old and gray, she would remember a funny looking old man with big ears and a broken soul, who showed her the universe. He simply hoped that when the time came he could let her go with as much grace and dignity as he believed he could right at this moment.

Till then, she slept. Pity, that. So many things to see and do and she had to fall asleep on him. Well, he supposed, it wasn't unusual for humans to sleep half their lives away. Still, so much to do, so many things to visit, places he hadn't seen since before the war and he couldn't wait to show her once she woke. Sighing, he reached for the copy of Oliver Twist nearly falling from limp fingers and flipped it open. He might as well read while he waited for her to rouse. It would be a long time till he could allow himself the luxury of dreams.


	16. Oh The Places You Will Go

Oh the places they did go! First to Sonorus XII, a planet where the natural cave features of the topography amplified the pitches of nature to create a virtual symphony of creation that drew in artists and musicians from all over the galaxy. Then to Persephone, a human colony in the far distant future, where half the world was in light and half in shadow at any one given point in the year. He took her to a planet that was made up of gaseous clouds so thick and dense that one could bounce on them, like a playhouse, and to the Horsehead Nebula to see the plasma storm he had promised. With all the joy and exuberance that seemed to be Rose she embraced each and every one of these adventures, her eyes sparkling, her tongue caught in a smile that reached from ear to ear, barely waiting for him to follow her out of the door and recite his usual speech on the most important tidbits and warn her not to do something supremely stupid and embarrass him.

Not that Rose tried to, but the girl was a magnet for trouble in a way that baffled even him. Perhaps it was the friendly, outgoing nature; the way she had in engaging even the strangest looking creatures. Rose rarely thought about the dangerous of what was out there, and admittedly he hated to tell her too much. Might take away from the fun. Still, even he grew exasperated after the third time he had to rescue her from some enraptured and usually intoxicated, young man whose sights were set on the pretty Earth girl who chatted him up.

"Always you and the pretty ones," he growled, hustling her out of a 47th century bar at a tropical resort where fairly soon the police would be called in on a bar fight he had no wish to be a part of. The fact that the fight was more a distraction engineered by him as a way of prying his companion away from a very aggressive and rich playboy named Fernando perhaps might have had something to do with his desire to put distance between the neon lit beach club and Rose.

"I don't do it on purpose," she retorted, rolling her eyes and snorting at his annoyed glare. "You were the one who said that this place had the best mojitos in the universe and you brought me here."

"Yes, to drink, not to get cozy with the locals." He ripped his key from out of his pocket, jamming it into the lock of the TARDIS. His ship hummed in satisfaction as lights came up and he wandered towards the console, Rose cheerfully skipping in behind him.

"That's the fun in all of this, isn't it? Getting to know the people and try all the different things. That's what you told me, least ways." She flopped on the jump seat, crossing jean-clad legs as she stared up at him. "Don't you do the same thing?"

He frowned at her from the other side of the console, before pretending to busy himself with a squeaky duck that supposedly function as a dial, but in reality was there because he found it amusing. "I go to these places to learn about their culture."

"Yeah and how can you learn the culture if you don't interact with the people in it?"

"Cheeky, you," he grumbled at her triumphant smile, glaring at the rubber toy and setting it aside. "I've had plenty of interactions, thank you very much."

"Really?" A dark eyebrow quirked, and he knew he had wandered into dangerous territory. He had opened a crack, a hint into that sacred area of which he didn't speak…his past. And Rose Tyler, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, was going to try and force herself in.

"Sure, everyone has their lurid stories of their youth." He shrugged, his shoulders rising and falling in his black leather, hoping that would be the end of it. Foolish, idiotic old man…

"So what are some of yours?"

"Nine hundred years and you think I remember them all?"

"Nine hundred years is a long time to collect stories about stupid things you've done." Rose leaned her elbows on her knees, watching him eagerly. "Come on, then! No drunken uni stories? No mornings waking up beside someone whose name you don't remember in some horribly compromising position."

His only response was to glare at her evenly across the console. It only served to make her laugh at him.

"Don't you ever regret anything about your past?"

So much…so very, very much…

"A few things," he replied shortly, clicking at buttons and studying coordinates on the screen in front of him.

Rose watched him carefully for long moments. The humor died as she sensed the painful tenderness of the subject with him.

"Why is it so hard to talk about your past?"

The "whys" could fill a book, a library full of books. He felt irritated, angry all the sudden that this girl would so persist on wanting to know about things that didn't matter anymore. Couldn't humans leave well enough alone?

He decided to use evasion as his best course of defense. "Why do you hate talking about yours?"

She saw through that, judging from the glare she shot back at him. "Because some of it is painful."

"Precisely," he replied, his words razor sharp as the cut between then. "Some things hurt."

"But not everything, right?" There was a hint of sadness there, of compassion, of aching pain for a man that she by all rights barely knew.

"No," he sighed, his chest tightening as he considered, shaking his head heavily. "Not all of it hurts."

"Perhaps, then, you could share the bits that don't as much," she offered reasonably. And he wished that it were as simple for him as it was for her and her existence. "Like, have you ever been in love?"

"Sure. Many times." A nice, bland answer to a question much more nuanced in its meaning that he was taking it. He had loved many people in many ways over the years. He wasn't technically lying.

"Have you ever been utterly pissed?" The grin slowly returned, a sparkle of playful curiosity in her eyes.

"Well, Time Lords, it's hard to get drunk. But there was one time when I did drink George, Prince of Wales under the table."

He could see Rose's delighted mind quickly calculate just how many monarchs that was back. "You mean the one who was made a regent?"

"The future George IV himself. He was found under that same table by his servants hours later in the company of no less than three ladies of ill repute and the wife of one of the more prominent nobles in the House of Lords."

"Sounds like a hell of a party," Rose giggled. "And where were you in all of this?"

"Sleeping on the only comfortable spot in the entire place, a silk cushion next to the piano, wondering why my mouth tasted as if I had swallowed a feather duster."

"Brilliant!" She chortled, clapping hands in obvious entertainment. "Doesn't it taste awful that next morning?"

"You'd think for the price of the fine, French wine we'd been drinking, it wouldn't have." He neglected to tell her that he'd practically emptied the then Prince of Wales' larder of all the expensive wine he had procured illegally during the war with the French and most of the rest of his stores of legal alcohol as well just to get to that level of intoxication. "Still, it made for a hell of a bachelor party."

"See, was that so bad," Rose asked, wiping at mirthful tears. The Doctor only shrugged in response. Perhaps it wasn't. But that story was a safe one, a throwaway that he could toss out on the waves and let her nibble at.

"Bet old King George regretted that one," Rose snickered to herself despite his brooding.

"I think he regretted Caroline more."

"We all have the bad relationship we wish we never got into," Rose replied sagely. "Those regrets of things we wish we could change or take back. I mean, even kings, right?" She picked at a nail as she considered. "I mean I lived with Jimmy Stone, great git. Eight hundred quid in the hole while he took off to Amsterdam to get stoned and find himself."

"Sounds like what all musicians do," the Doctor shot back, wondering what in the world a girl as intelligent as Rose saw in some sniveling dolt.

"Well, I always was an idiot for someone I thought was brilliant with a pretty face." Rose shrugged in that casual way people had when they realized their faults but weren't particularly sorry about them. "I don't know, don't you have those things in your past that you regret? Those moments when you wish you could just…I don't know, take the TARDIS back and change how things were?"

Those moments? Try hundreds of them. If only he could go back, when the Moment was in his hand, or further back still, to that first meeting he had with Davros so long ago, the one where he realized that the scientist was both brilliant and insane. If he had just made that decision back then to do what he could have done and brought and end to it all. He had been noble then, or so he had told Sarah and Harry. But now he had to wonder, was it truly noble, or was it simply his pride speaking, his arrogance at believing he was so much better than Davros?

"Sure," he replied, short and to the point. "But there's no point in doing that, now is there?"

She blinked curiously at him, as if his answer surprised her. "You mean you've never gone and done it."

"Done what?" He was playing at being obtuse as he punched in numbers into his touch screen.

"Gone back and changed things because you've regretted them?"

"And why would I do that?" He couldn't help it, sounding as if it were perhaps the most incredibly thick thing he'd ever heard. Which in fact it was.

"Because if you did, you could fix your mistakes."

"And if I did, I could tear the universe into pieces, that's what," he snapped, glaring at her. "Certain things are fixed points in the continuum, you can't alter them no matter how you wish you might. To do so would….tear everything apart."

"You mean, like if I went back in time and accidentally killed my own grandfather? I might never exist?"

"Mere child's play compared to that old, worn out line, but yeah, same idea." He set the course into the TARDIS's computer and sent her careening through the vortex before turning to lean his back against the console, regarding the wide-eyed girl in front of him. "Only it's not just one thing, it's a hundred little things. You kill your grandfather, and your grandmother never has your mother or father. Everything your grandfather did, every person who ever had contact with him, every event that centered on your grandfather will never happen now because they are gone. The entire world changes, a ripple effect in space, causing it to convulse and rip, tear and shred."

Rose's thick lashes blinked up at him, horrified and intrigued by the idea. "And then what happens?"

The Doctor shrugged, considering the various possibilities. "Well, it's a paradox, which in and of itself tends to make reality fray and tear. Best-case scenario, lower level life forms in certain areas are destroyed, while higher mental forms can perhaps escape the carnage on a different plane. But in reality, what will likely happen is that everyone and everything you know will snap out of existence as the universe is eaten away, bit by bit."

It was clear that whatever the possibilities of time travel were to her, Rose had never considered that. Honey brown eyes were wide in her face. "That's horrible."

"That's time travel." He shrugged, considering. "Time Lords of course are trained against such things in the Academy. And the TARDIS, she does a lot to help." He patted the side of the console with affection. "Because she exists in all times and every dimension she also can avoid those things that would cause a paradox. Of course, there are things that happen that even she can't foresee, or risks that are taken, but I'm smart enough to get us out of those."

"And so modest, too," she smirked, rolling her eyes.

"It's not bragging when it's the truth."

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the TARDIS gave a lurch that sent Rose nearly sprawling straight into his chest. He grabbed the console for support, frowning as he turned around towards the touch screen, reading the numbers and Gallifreyan letters as they spat out, trying to make sense of what was going on.

"Everything all right?" Rose eyed the now steady TARDIS warily. The ship had smoothed itself out, but wasn't going in the direction he had sent it.

"Fine," he replied, lying through his teeth. "What's up, old girl, eh? What's got you going somewhere else?"

"We've stopped." Rose eyed the Time Rotor as it began to slow, the sure sign that they had dematerialized somewhere. His read out stated it was Earth, the year 2012, not far in Rose's future. They were somewhere in the middle of Utah in the American West. He hoped it wasn't Area 51 again. That had been a hell of a mess to find himself in, and he had no desire to run away from early, twenty-first century American military types with a stick shoved firmly up their arse.

"Can we go and check it out?"

The eager light in her eyes, the thirst for adventure, the Doctor knew he should say no and caution her until he figured out what was going on. But the minute she peeked curiously at the camera feed outside of the TARDIS doors, he knew he was going to give her exactly what she wanted.

"Fine, but no running off and flirting with pretty boys this time. I don't want us to get arrested again."

"You act as if I go about trying to cause these incidents," she protested mildly, even as she was nearly out of the door.

"Trouble finds you like a magnet, Rose Tyler," he called. He wondered vaguely what trouble she would cause him on this adventure.


	17. Beware the Jabberwock, My Son

He always walked into these things so full of himself.

When the door clanged shut he had been certain it was some poor, hapless creature, like him, likely misunderstood by a fool of a human who didn't know and didn't care what he was getting into. Could be hurt, likely traumatized, whatever it was, he was damn certain he wasn't going to let Van Statten keep it as his private, whipping toy. So there he was, the Doctor, so sure of the universe and how it worked, that he was in absolute control of the situation.

Until he said his name - and that unmistakable voice rose in its electronic madness and shattered his certainty forever.

The instinct to run had been natural. The cries of "exterminate" still rang through his subconscious, generating fright and flight like nothing in the universe could. The great and powerful Time Lord, reduced to panic and fear. And why not? That was the cold, synthesized voice he had heard for centuries, chasing him through cities, planets. He had heard it under the shrieks and screams of innocents who had died at the hands of Daleks hordes, the smell of flesh burning and stink of ozone still fresh in his nostrils. For all of the amazing intellect and insight, for all that he could feel time and space running through his body, see it swirl around him, for all that he thought he was some sort of hero, in the face of a Dalek, even a chained one, he was nothing more than a quivering coward.

He didn't even realize he was pounding on the door till he heard his own voice ringing back desperately in his ears. This was how he was to end? After all this, after everything he went through, to be surprised, one last time, one singular survivor tracking him down to exact his punishment.

And then nothing happened.

The Doctor couldn't be sure who was more surprised by this, himself or the Dalek, sitting as it was struggling in its bonds. Its laser twitched fretfully as the creature puzzled over why every instinct in its body couldn't seem to make the weapons in its armor to work. And he stared, wide eyed, wondering at this thing, this nightmare in brass colored armor. Why it didn't kill him?

And he laughed.

Partly it was because of the utter ridiculousness of the situation. There was something comical about an impotent Dalek, staring at his laser arm in dismay and confusion, unable to do the one thing that Dalek's always seemed to want to do. But the rest of his laughter, the sad, hysterical edge that seeped out, was merely because of the irony of it all. Of course he killed the Daleks - all of them - save one. He had sacrificed his planet, his people, to wipe them out of the universe, and one, broken survivor had to find its way there. Just as he had, he supposed. The pair of them, the shattered remains of a Time War that had ended long ago, but still seemed to rage on and on and on.

The sheer infinity of it all was what broke him finally, as he stared into the optic lens. And suddenly he wasn't the kind and gentle Doctor, the man there to help a poor, tortured creature. He was something else, something darker, something angrier. All the fear and anguish and loathing, everything he had regenerated feeling since that horrible moment so long ago, resurfaced as he looked into the empty optic lens. He knew what was in there, he knew it was fully aware of who he was, and he felt all the fury that had curdled and festered inside of him burst free at that moment. Mercy was not something he knew. He was a vengeful god, the last of his kind, with nothing to stop him.

He was the Oncoming Storm.

And he spewed his wrath on the creature, weakened and broken, and he delighted in it. The barely scabbed over wounds opened, spilling bile and venom on his enemy, and he danced on the graves of his own people as he proudly proclaimed that it was he who destroyed the Daleks, that he made it happen, that he had exacted vengeance on all of them. He stopped his ears to its pleas for pity. He ignored its pathetic need for mercy and clemency as he pulled the switch, fully prepared to do unto it as it had done unto so many others.

He could terminate this all right now. Destroy this creature before it could do any more harm. End the Time War right now. Perhaps it was murder, and who cared? The Daleks had murdered millions, billions, entire races without a second thought, erasing them from history as if they were mere specks. What was one, lone, defenseless survivor in comparison to the countless numbers obliterated in Dalek extermination programs? Besides, who was there to stop him? Certainly not his people anymore. He was a Time Lord, the last of them. And he could do whatever he wished about it.

And so he did.

At least until he was pulled away, rough hands jerking him up the ramp, slamming him away from the electrical source and the screaming, dying creature. Humans! What did they know? They had not even noticed Daleks yet. Their race at this time was oblivious. Current humans were spared the horror, the carnage, and the knowledge of what the Daleks could do. All Van Statten saw when he stared into the metal casing chained to his wall was profit. So much profit…

He didn't understand that waiting there was death.

And then the man turned to him, speculation bright in beady eyes. And whatever the Doctor had to say about danger and destruction was lost as it occurred to the man that the Doctor wasn't exactly human either. Somewhere in his ranting and raving, he had mentioned out loud in front of everyone that he was a Time Lord. And Van Statten smiled slowly at him.

And the Oncoming Storm was suddenly very afraid.


	18. The Enemy of My Enemy

When the madness and frantic fear ebbed, only the annoyed and tired Time Lord remained. And that was something that Henry Van Statten was extremely intrigued by, the creature that sat right in front of him and how he wasn't exactly human.

"What are Time Lords?" Van Statten smugly mused, watching the Doctor as if he were a particularly entertaining monkey at the zoo. He should talk, the Doctor noted viciously. If there was ever a more stupid ape in the universe it was the man leering at him at that moment, sizing him up like the Mona Lisa in his personal vanity collection of oddities. And perhaps the Doctor was. Well, he and one of the last remnants of one of his greatest enemies.

"What does it say on the tin," he shot back irritably. Adrenaline still hummed inside setting his nerves on edge. And he had no desire to be sitting here, putting up with this petty, small man.

If Van Statten was offended, he didn't show it. His ego was thick enough it probably didn't register. "So I'm supposed to take it you're a lord of time, then?"

"Something like that," he snapped, already tired of where this was going, and he did know where it was going. He only hoped Van Statten had something more high tech in his menagerie of alien toys than a scalpel and an X-ray machine. The last time someone had tried to mess around medically with his body, it had not gone well and it had taken him hours to regenerate.

"So what, you can manipulate time? Play with it? What does it mean?" Van Statten paced the narrow confines of the metal encased examination room. The doors were sealed with three-inch thick steel doors; bookcased by two, burley men in Kevlar and scowls. Evidently they made Van Statten feel safe. Of course, he had no idea the destructive potential of the creature downstairs in his personal dungeon. And yet, he could sit there and profile him? The Doctor? 

What the hell, If it shut the idiot up and made him see reason. He sat on a low bench across from Van Statten's curious, beady eyes, shrugging his leather-clad shoulders in supreme nonchalance. "My people could see time."

"What, like, they could just know what time it was?'

"Yeah," he sneered, earning a spark of ire from the imbecilic, little man.

"Then why do you wear a wrist watch?" His smirking gaze fell to the one on the Doctor's arm.

"I like the irony of it."

"Right." Van Statten smiled, a cold, fake lifting up lips under his mustache. "So you see time? What does it look like?"

Really? This man wanted parlor tricks? A Dalek was just feet below him, close enough through the concrete and armor that it made his skin itch and his senses scream in his ears, and this man wanted a dog and pony show? Despite his better judgment he quietly closed his eyes, wrapping himself in that old familiar warmth of time, the golden glow that danced and spun around him and through him, slowing his hearts, slowing his breathing, slowing the movements in the room and the rushing of the blood in the veins of the humans around him. Everything slowed until it just…stopped.

"Right now, I know that you are forty-years-old," he intoned. "More precisely, you are forty years, eight months, three weeks, twelve hours, twenty five minutes, and six seconds old. You have had many branches and paths in your life that you could have gone on. Had you braked four seconds later on your bike when you were twelve, you would be dead rather than having a nasty scar on your knee. If you had waited twenty minutes and thirteen seconds on your best friend when you were fourteen you'd have never won the science competition that got you noticed, though it lost you the friendship of the person you were closest to. You have lived a life full of decisiveness, you've never stood at crossroads long enough to consider, leaving off other branches and paths of time. Consequently there are few things you truly regret, except that one romance when you were twenty three years, four months, and nine days, but you know there always those little people who get lost on the way up to the top, right?"

He opens his eyes, his mouth lifting in a smirk at the man across the way.

Van Statten hardly seemed impressed. "That's all? That's it?"

"What? Did you think I could click rewind on life with the snap of my fingers?" The Doctor snorted, rolling his eyes. "Really, the things people need to be impressed."

"Any of that can easily be found on the internet, especially by someone trying to steal my things."

"Because you have such an impressive collection of junk," the Doctor bit back, now irate at this small man and the power he thought he wielded. "You asked me to see time and so I did. What do you want, a ticker tape parade?"

"Perhaps a recitation of something other than my Facebook profile."

"A man like you doesn't have a Facebook profile, at least not a real one." The Doctor grated out, already sick of this man after his brush with the Dalek this fool insisted on protecting. "Fine, you want to see what I can do? I know that when you took your first company public, you lied about the program software that you were developing in order to increase your profitability."

That surprised Van Statten. His lazy frown turned cold as it became clear that wasn't something that the Doctor could just Google. "Right. So who's been talking about that one?"

The Doctor snorted, rolling his eyes. "Really? You have a living Dalek in your building, and you are worried someone's been telling tales? No one has. The one person who knew you had conveniently killed for it a few years later. Oh, it wasn't a real murder, you just made sure that his heart medication got lost in the mail while he was vacationing in the Bahamas and he got a distressing email from his favorite call girl that sent him into cardiac arrest."

Van Statten almost laughed at that but he didn't deny it. "My work has been above board. Who are you to question it?"

"The Doctor," he said simply. "And I know that had you been honest about that software glitch, your company would have indeed taken a temporary hit, but your honesty would have won you respect and admiration in the industry. You'd have been named a businessman of vision, of compassion, business schools would have been lined up to have you speak there about honesty in the twenty-first century marketplace."

Not totally unexpectedly Van Statten seemed amused by this notion. "Be a man of the people or a man of greatness? Really, Doctor?" He rolled the name around his mouth with a sense of dubious amusement. "What do you think any man…well, any human would honestly choose?"

Stupid, ignorant ape….

"I'd hope," he muttered in quiet disgust. "I'd hope they would realize that greatness comes from being one of the people. By not thinking themselves above them or apart. But then, you wouldn't know anything about that…not the greatness part."

The air in the room was cool as they stared at each other across the small expanse. It was Van Statten who rose first, crossing his arms as he looked down on the Doctor critically, as if sizing him up for a Plexiglas's case with laser security.

"Tell me, Doctor," he finally hummed. "You said down there that you destroyed these Daleks. You ended their lives, all by your hand. What do you know about the sort of greatness that you speak off, this altruism you are preaching about, hmmm?"

Van Statten was an idiot, but he was a cruel and perceptive one. The Doctor didn't flinch, didn't blink, he wouldn't give the foolish man the satisfaction.

"Take him downstairs to medical, I want to use our new scanning, laser device on him. See how it works on him." Van Statten jerked his head towards the two thugs at his door, each crossing to take an arm as the pulled him roughly up. The Doctor didn't fight them, not for this.

"You don't know what you are getting into with that creature, Van Statten. It isn't a person, it has no feelings, and it certainly doesn't care about you."

"So says a man who admits to committing genocide on an entire race." Van Statten shot back as he was led out the door. "For all your talk, Doctor, I have to wonder if you even have a heart."

He didn't know the half of it, the Doctor thought bitterly, as he was shuffled through the clinical neatness of the hallway by thick and determined hands.


	19. And I Love Her

"I wouldn't have miss this for the world!"

Her words, so honest through the tears, hit his gut as his brain fought frantically to reason a way of doing the impossible, of saving her. But too late, the all too familiar battle cry of the Dalek below cut through the fear, leaving him cold as the energy zapped and popped on the end of the line.

The Doctor stared, mouth dry as he ripped the bluetooth headpiece off of his head. He couldn't say anything, he couldn't feel anything. Images of space, of emptiness, of a blank spot in the universe where a world used to be crept to mind and his hearts seized in his chest. Nothing survived Daleks, nothing...not even his people.

"I killed her," he whispered, knowing it as surely as he knew he killed his people. The other two people in the room with him, Van Statten and the woman, Goddard, simply stared on in vague horror.

"I'm sorry," Van Statten murmured, for once sounding truly authentic about it.

"I said I'd protect her!" The Doctor turned on him, the irritation he had felt with the man now turning to a quickly burning rage. "She was only here because of me and you're sorry? I could have killed that Dalek in it's cell, but you stopped me."

"It was the prize of my collection," the other man protested. While he was sorry for Rose, he seemed to ignore the other dozens of lives that had just been sacrificed for his precious horde.

"Your collection," the Doctor spat, the sound of the Dalek's weapons hissing in his brain, never to be forgotten. "But was it worth it? Worth all those men's deaths? Worth Rose?"

Nothing was worth that as far as the Doctor was concerned, especially not Van Statten. The Doctor glared at Van Statten, who looked so small now behind his big desk and his fancy equipment. "Mankind goes into space to explore, to be part of something greater."

"Exactly," Van Staten exclaimed. "I wanted to touch the stars!"

"You just want to drag the stars down and stick them underground," he shot back. "Underneath tons of sand and dirt and label them. You're about as far from the stars as you can get."

And the irony of this all was that he had just helped to destroy one of the brightest lights in the Doctor's whole, damned, miserable existence. "And you took her down with you."

His eyes stung as he thought her, that bright smile stretching across her face, those cinnamon eyes sparkling mischief, her laugh ringing as she found amusement in something he had overlooked. Gone forever. "She was nineteen years old."

Van Statten blinked, his round face pale as he chewed fitfully at his mustache. "I didn't know."

"That's always the way with you lot. Claim ignorance when you ignore sense. Piss all over yourselves and then look at me and wonder how it happened. Bloody, stupid apes," he snapped. If he hadn't found the man so utterly disgusting he'd have punched him in his smarmy face.

Footsteps sounded in the hall. For half a fleeting moment the Doctor hoped. But that fell when he turned and saw the fresh-faced, pretty boy Rose had picked up. He had made it out, been quick enough to run. He couldn't grab rose by the hand, rush her along to the door? Was that too much to ask? Like as not it never crossed the child's mind. His accusations charged the boy no sooner that he made his way in. "You were quick on your feet, leaving Rose behind."

He didn't waste time defending himself, guilt and anger coalescing quickly to defensiveness. "I'm not the one who sealed the vault."

Before the Doctor could form a smart reply the screen behind him flickered. Over the loudspeakers came the same, haunting electronic voice that the Doctor was sure was straight out of hell itself, if hell existed somewhere. "Open the bulkhead or Rose Tyler dies."

She was alive?

Something bright and golden rose, unbidden, within the Doctor as he spun to face the console, relief mingling with fear as he smiled at the black and white image of his companion. "You're alive!"

"Can't get rid of me," Rose smirked nervously, clearly doing well enough to joke. But there was no masking the terror and confusion underneath the bravado. His brave Rose.

"I thought you were dead," he admitted, honest feelings rushing faster than he could push them aside. No one survived the Daleks when they decided to kill someone, no one!

And then it occurred to him why Rose was still breathing. The Dalek had no interest to keep her alive...except to get at him. A Dalek with empathy enough to understand that as a weakness and exploit it? When had that ever happened?

Ice formed in his gut as he stared at the screen.

"Open the bulkhead," the Dalek commanded.

"Don't do it," Rose pleaded, eyes wide. Typical, she'd rather sacrifice herself for everyone else. And even as the Doctor's hearts lurched at the idea, he felt ever so proud of her for it.

"What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?" The Dalek's broken monotone needled, laying bare a truth not even the Doctor acknowledged. He loved this pink and yellow slip of a human girl. Well, whatever that meant, he hadn't particularly explored the nuances of "love" in regards to Rose Tyler in comparison to any other companion. But he did know that in this whole, blasted, blighted existence of his in this life, she was the first and only good thing that had happened in it. He thought he had lost her for that moment. And the hell he was going to let her go again.

"I killed her once," he muttered, glancing at the other two men. "I can't do it again."

Without hesitation he clicked the key that opened the bulkhead, knowing even as he did so he could be threatening at least the city of Las Vegas if not the whole Western United States to a horrific death. And really, if there was nothing he could think of to stop it before it got that far, well, the entire planet could soon follow. All for the love of one, human girl.

"What do we do now, you bleeding heart," Van Statten hissed. "What the hell do we do?"

He was only just now catching on to what this thing was, the Doctor thought in mild disgust.

"Kill it when it gets here," the boy piped up with more confidence than the Doctor felt at the moment.

"All the guns are useless," Goddard finally spoke, her voice sharp and eyes wide as she stared at the screen. She at least seem to have the most sense in the room. "And the alien ones are in the vault."

The vault, which was now sealed behind Rose and the Dalek.

"Only the catalogued ones." The boy grinned, glancing at the Doctor. "I have a whole pile of things in my lab. Things I haven't identified yet."

Somehow the Doctor imagined that pile was fairly large, and judging from Van Statten's earlier gaff with the musical instrument, no one in this place could tell the difference between a handgun and a hair dryer. "Take me to it."

"And leave us here unprotected," Van Statten burst out, glaring wildly between the encroaching Dalek on the screen and the Doctor.

"What, you expect me to wave my hand at it and have it turn to bits?" The Doctor snorted at the other man's sudden fear. "You missing all those security guards you sent to die earlier, now?"

"You said you could shoot it!"

"I said you could, I didn't say you'd kill it." Guilt gnawed at him as he recalled their dismay when his advice on the eye stalk failed. He hadn't counted on the Dalek shields being functional. "Besides, we need ammunition."

"You said you fought these things before!" Van Statten sounded desperate.

"Yeah," the Doctor's jaw tightened grimly as he glanced between the idiot, Goddard, and the boy. "I did. My people fought them beyond time itself. And my people died. That's what happens when you get too arrogant with things you don't understand, Van Statten."

Without another word he turned on his heels, jerking his head towards the boy to lead on. He hoped he found something of use. If not, he hoped he died quickly in the aftermath. He didn't think he could face Jackie Tyler and tell her that her daughter was dead.


	20. Three's a Crowd

He said no. She batted her eyes. He had given in.

Now the Doctor wished he hadn't.

He sighed, glancing at the monitor, telling himself he was merely observing and not blatantly spying on Rose and her new toy, named Adam Mitchell as it were. A bit younger than Rose in real time, yes, but in relative time he was two years older, university educated, nice A-levels, a boy genius who had been allowed free reign on a junkyard of alien detritus. And for whatever reason, Rose found that intriguing. Show a girl time and space in a TARDIS and she shrugged it off, but have a pretty face and a few corny lines and she'd drag you with her. God knows what use you were. Clearly Rose paid no attention to the fact that he was the pratt who went and left her to die at the end of a Dalek weapon. Now she was prancing around his TARDIS with him, showing him the lounge, and the swimming pool, and the library. Library...he didn't want some nerdy, 21st century, techno-geek who thought all books came on tablets to finger his lovely, first edition, ancient books.

Frankly, he didn't want that greasy git fingering anything.

But there was no help for it. There he was and Rose was thrilled. She had someone else to talk to other than him. And why shouldn't she? After all she was young, pretty, flirty, attractive. She should be chasing after boys and batting her eyes, using that confidence of hers to break hearts wherever she went. That was her right as a nineteen year old. She was far too young to be stuck all day, everyday, inside and out with a washed up, broken down, crippled old soldier like him. The last remnant of a war that no one had won. The sole survivor.

"You're looking like I just kicked your puppy!"

He didn't need to turn and see Rose's smirk. He quickly tapped at his monitor and shut down the video feed that now showed her boyfriend spinning around in a room that he obviously now claimed as his own. He shrugged as she sidled up next to him, hands shoved in her jeans.

"Never had a puppy," he grumped, pretending to be busy with a Alterian word find, only because it looked impressive on his screen. "Had a pet robot once."

Rose arched a dark eyebrow mildly but didn't comment. "You don't like Adam, do you?"

"Why does it matter whether or not I like him?"

"Why did you let him on your ship?"

"I've let plenty of people I didn't like on my ship over the centuries and some of them I didn't kick off."

"Yeah, but why did you let him on?" She lifted her chin, pushing it. He wanted to growl and walk away. Instead, he fixated on one of the spinning symbols on his screen, one he thought meant something about finding something you didn't want and weren't looking for in the first place.

"Cause you asked," he replied simply. He liked simple. You didn't have to lie as much.

"You've said no to plenty of things I've asked for." She snorted, turning from him and wandering over to the jump seat. "I don't know. You've been pissy ever since he came on."

"I've not been pissy. Time Lords don't ever do anything vaguely or remotely related to that."

Rose only rolled her eyes, crossing her arms and leveling him a glare.

"What?"

"I just wanted to invite him cause he's got no one."

"Right," the Doctor snorted, returning to his puzzle.

"And he wanted to see the stars so badly. It was why he ended up with Van Statten."

"You know there are plenty of countries with space programs he could have applied for."

"And conveniently you have a time and space ship that was right there in front of him, all ready to go."

The Doctor turned to glare at her, leaning a denim clad hip against the console. "And of course this has nothing to do with the fact that you think he is cute." He uttered the final word the same way he'd utter "Dalek".

Rose looked mutinous, but there was no hiding the flush across her cheeks as her eyes darted to her knees. "I wasn't thinking about that!"

"Weren't you?" He couldn't help himself. It was petty, he knew it, and he should be above such things at 900 years old.

"It's not like I plan on shagging him in your ship," she shot back, now just annoyed and lashing out.

"What would I care if you did, just clean up the mess," he replied cooly, trying now to ignore images of Rose and that boy together, kissing or anything else.

"You wouldn't?" She didn't sound as if she believed him. And perhaps she didn't. After all, humans always thought of sex. Their race with their tiny lifespans couldn't help but think about it all the time. But he was a Time Lord, a race who lived centuries, who didn't possess that same urge to procreate in order to preserve the species.

Except, now he was the only of his kind, the only one left of his species.

"Do whatever you want, Rose," he muttered roughly, far more so than he had intended. "Besides, I suppose you could do with some company other than me, yeah? Four months of this daft face, enough to drive anyone to see something new."

He turned abruptly back to his game then, not wanting to see the sympathy he could already feel from the girl as her hard expression softened.

"Doctor," she began, voice soft.

"And I won't tell Ricky about...what's his name. Not unless you want me to."

He had meant it as a low blow. And it worked. The softness fled, and he didn't need to look at her to know she was glaring at the back of head. "It's Mickey. And it's not like that."

"Who, your boy back home or the one on here?"

"Either," she spat back. Her smirked at her ire, ignoring the niggling guilt that squirmed in his gut.

"Well, you might want to consider being more honest with them. Don't lead them on. I don't want any of yourvdomestic disputes on this ship, you hear? No wounded boyfriends, no squabbles. Keep it to yourself."

"Fine," she snapped, throwing herself up off the seat, her feet squeaking as she stomped away. He waited till he knew she wasn't looking till he watched her go.

He'd had more than one companion in the past. He'd had three at a time sometimes. Always worked then. No reason, if they were all reasonable, why it wouldn't work now.

Except the Dalek's words came back to him about loving this girl. What did a Dalek know of the subject? Of course he cared for her, she was brilliant. But he didn't pant after her, not the way that her now growing string of pretty boys did. And that, that was the difference. He cared...for her.

He swore in a language no one else in the universe knew anymore and glared at his monitor and wondered if perhaps it wouldn't have been better if he had never discovered Rose Tyler at all.


	21. The Place Between

As it turned out he needn't have worried so much about the pretty boy. The bloom was off Rose rather early as he surmised from the glare he earned from over the rim of her coffee mug one morning two weeks on. He blinked mildly at her but shrugged, returning to watching his toast. He had to keep an eye on it, the thing had been funny since he had tried to fine tune it with his sonic and had only managed to make it run hotter.

"Hitting a sour note among the lovebirds?" He hoped he didn't sound as horribly smug saying it out loud as he did in his head, but then wondered why he should care whether it did or not.

"We aren't 'lovebirds'," she muttered, stirring a bowl of oatmeal, but not eating it.

"Okay," he replied, watching her as she piddled with her cereal. "Well, since I don't think the oatmeal did anything to you, I have to ask why you are trying to savage it?"

She rolled her eyes in disgust and pushed it away, pulling the sleeves of the comfy pajamas she had on over her hands and resting her chin on them. "What are we doing today?"

He returned to his toast, eyeing the fine, caramelized browning of the surface, just on that fine edge of being burnt, and popped it out of the toaster. "Don't know. Hadn't thought much about it."

Her response was to groan and plant her face on the table.

"I'm so bored," she bellowed as he calmly searched for jam in one of the cupboards, finding marmalade but going for strawberry.

"Thought you were enjoying showing off my ship to...Billy?"

"Adam," she snapped, raising her face off the wood. "And we've been sitting in space for a week."

"It's not space," he replied, sitting down at the table with his toast and jam, dolloping the latter generously on the former. "It's the Vortex."

As usual when throwing out something new towards Rose she perked up, curiosity alight. "Vortex? What's that?"

"The Time Vortex," he continued, pleased she had asked. "It is the place between. It's not in space or time. Sort of outside Einstein's realm."

"If it's outside of time and space, where is it?"

"Between the two," he replied, crunching on his toast. "The Vortex is the place between."

Rose smiled as she considered. "That sounds so...fantastic. Like something out of a comic book."

"Even humans in your time period know about the Vortex, though they don't call it that. It's a place where the laws of physics as your people know them sort of...bend."

"And we are in that place right now?" Far from sounding worried, Rose sounded intrigued.

"Yeah," he nodded, reaching for his tea on the counter. "It's how we get through all these places and times, through the Vortex. The TARDIS tends to like to stay there when we aren't in regular space-time."

"So if it isn't in space and it isn't in time, what is it? What's there?"

"Glad you asked," he grinned, not for the first time finding himself amazed at the utter joy this human girl with little formal education took in knowing how and why things worked. "The Vortex is hostile. Filled with winds that can age you and creatures that can feast on time itself. No one can really survive in it. Well, except for a Time Lord."

"Of course," she snorted, smirking at his pompousness affectionately. "Your superior biology?"

"Well, yeah." He shrugged, slightly nettled. "It's why we have it, you see?"

"You evolved to play around in this Time Vortex?"

"We evolved because of the Time Vortex." His hearts skipped slightly as he recalled that moment, so long ago, when he had stood, just a wee tot with scabby, knobbly knees and wide eyes, staring into eternity. "A long time ago my people learned how to manipulate time and see into the Vortex. Some say it changed us."

Rose's keen eyes brightened as it clicked with her. "That's why you can live so long then, yeah?"

"Yeah...well, kind of. The Vortex, the energy there, it's the most powerful thing in all of the universe. It's bound to change anyone, sort of like living next to a radioactive dump. But for Time Lords, it lets us…"

A thumping noise and a choked groan sounded from outside of the galley, as the tousled head of his newest companion came into view, eyes groggy and baby face in need of a dire shave. "Is it morning yet?"

The Doctor swallowed his spike of irritation as Rose rolled her eyes, giving Adam an indulgent smile. "Isn't ever really morning on here, not really. One of the quirks of living in a ship that travels through time."

"I feel like I have the worst case of jet lag ever," he whinged, collapsing like a sack of potatoes into the nearest chair, eyeing the Doctor moodily. "Does it feel this bad for everyone their first time?"

"Rose adapted just fine," he found himself saying before he could help himself, completely unimpressed by his newest charges complaining. "She was up three days before she collapsed, and we had how many adventures?"

"Three," she replied, thinking. "Once to the future, once to the past, and once with the Slitheen."

"Slitheen?" Adam rolled the word off his tongue as if it were a particularly nasty disease, which considering the family, wasn't that far off.

"Yeah. Remember that incident where Number 10 got blown up?"

His bleary eyes blinked. "Yeah, when I was like twelve or thirteen. They said it was terrorists."

"Nope, it was the Slitheen." Rose grinned, tongue peeking out cheerfully. "We were there when it happened."

That had been only months ago for Rose, not years. But it might as well have been, he mused, watching her now, so cheeky and confident about it all in hindsight. He could have lost her that day if not for her quick thinking. Now she laughed at it, was proud of it.

"So what are Slitheen?"

"Aliens," Rose responded. "And not good ones. Make all these farting noises all the time. Rather disgusting."

"And rather greedy," the Doctor rose from the table, finding himself suddenly no longer hungry for toast. "So, Rose says she's bored. Care for an adventure?"

"Does it have to be with Slitheen?" Adam looked rather queasy at the thought.

"How about the future," Rose chimed in. "That's where you took me, Doctor. Though, maybe not to the end of the world."

"You saw the end of the world?" Adam piped up, eyes wide in disbelief.

"Yeah, burned to a crisp." She waved her hand at him. "Maybe someplace fun?"

The Doctor considered her, half-torn by irritation and affection at how easily she brushed off the end of her world now. "I got a place. Think you two might like it. Space station, overlooking one of the great, human empires on Earth in the future. Best food, best art, best culture, best everything from your world." He glanced between the pair. "You two game?"

Rose nodded eagerly, already rising with her half-eaten cereal. Adam looked cautiously game.

"Right, clean up, meet you in the console room in half and hour. Wear comfortable shoes."

Adam wondered as the Doctor stood. "Why comfortable shoes?"

"Cause something mad always happens with him," Rose snickered over her shoulder.

"Quite right," he muttered at Rose's teasing. "Don't want to be thrown into a future jail for trespassing, do you?"

He didn't stick around to hear Adam's worried response.


	22. What We Have Lost

Rose shed no tears when Adam was booted unceremoniously from his ship. He tried to pretend he wasn't pleased by the way she grinned at him when the doors shut on Adam's sorry expression and how she shrugged it off and bounded to the console, demanding to know where they were going next. Just like that, as if a mind-controlling alien hadn't just tried to kill them or her boyfriend hadn't just proved what an utter prat he was. He was finding that Rose Tyler had the sort of indomitable spirit he had once, long ago. He had lost his, however, even before the war ended. Long before Arcadia and the Moment. Perhaps that was why, in an act of desperation, he had decided to bring an end to all things. But now, things were different. Rose was brightness and light, pulling him along at a bazaar on a far off world, laughing in delight as he took her to the ancient Palio in medieval Siena, even as they had to run for their lives to escape a riot brewing. Her smile remained no matter the madcap circumstances they found themselves in, even when he glowered and groused the most.

Until one day, it disappeared.

He hadn't really caught on to it at first. They had been doing what they always did, adventuring. He was never really sure afterwards what had set her off; whether it was the royal wedding on a far away planet they snuck into or the pleasant picnic in the park watching a father with his daughters playing a game of "death by water balloon" on a hot summer day. But it had crept up, that thoughtful, far away look in her eye, the quiet consideration, the slumped shoulders and twirled hair around her finger. When he realized he hadn't seen her smile in nearly forty-eight hours he had to ask.

"What's got you down?"

"Nothing," she muttered, not even meeting his inquisitive gaze. He sat by the console, twiddling with a spanner he planned to put below, watching her as she stared at nothing in particular.

"You make a horrible liar, Rose." He returned to his fiddling, half-an-eye cocked on the girl beside him. Humans were horribly predictable and Rose was worse than most. He guessed it would take a matter of moments for the whole, sordid story to come out.

And as if by magic, she turned sharply to glance at him, dark eyebrows knit together in a troubled frown that warned of a serious conversation. "You had a family once, yeah?"

That wasn't what he had expected. His head jerked so hard up, it nearly cricked. "Why?"

The word came out far more sharply than he had intended, and he regretted it the moment he saw Rose wince away.

"I don't know, just...thought you might have done."

He cursed himself for being too hard with her and himself for falling into this sort of conversation. "Yeah, I did."

"Mum, dad, everything?"

"Yeah," he replied, busying himself with the bit of metal in his hands rather than the curious look in her eyes. His thumb rubbed over the smooth surface, wishing desperately he could be under the grates and not discussing this.

"I suppose they are gone now, with your people?

He grunted ambiguously, contemplating simply crawling under the console rather than continuing this torture. Rose seemed oblivious, quietly humming as she picked at her nails.

"Were you ever, you know, a dad?"

Her words were innocent enough, unintentional in their cruelty. Rose simply wanted to know, she always did, with that endless curiosity. And he had told her next to nothing about himself. How could she possibly know the spiraling agony as he thought of those children, so many of those children.

"I was," he admitted, eyes fixed on the object in his hand, wishing he could think of a way of ending this conversation without snapping her head off and fleeing to the furthest part of his TARDIS.

"Was it...hard?"

Anger, pain, loss, all welled up in that moment, a cold, irate ball of fury that prepared to unleash itself on her unsuspecting questions, but before the bile could reach his lips, she continued, staring at the wall beyond him without even seeing his distress.

"I ask only 'cause I've always wondered. Do you think my Dad would have thought it hard to leave me behind?"

The ire he had prepared to unleash on his unwitting companion died on his lips. His head snapped up, so hard the cartilage in his vertebrae crunched and cracked. He stared up at her as she stared, resolutely, at anything but him.

"What brought this on," he wondered bluntly, brows furrowing as he raced through all their recent adventures.

"Nothing," she muttered duly. He knew that was a lie, but also knew that the cause was also likely ambiguous to her. "I don't know. I just was thinking a lot about him lately, yeah. Just...wondering. Stupid things."

The Doctor was the first to admit he had never been great with emotions. Whether it was Susan's impulsive outbursts or Sarah's occasional tears he had a tendency to brush them off with impatience, not knowing really what to do with the female need to overshare thoughts and feelings. But something in Rose's woebegone expression tugged at the broken parts of himself, the part of him that had been a father and grandfather once and who wondered everyday about those he left behind. "Tell me about me about him."

Rose blinked, surprised perhaps that he had asked? He wrapped around her middle and nodded. "His name was Pete...Peter. Peter Alan Tyler, my dad. Born 15th September, 1954."

It took the Doctor less than a breath to calculate that Pete Tyler would only be in his 50's in Rose's time. Not old at all and all those years missing this amazing young woman growing up. It happened all the time, the cold, calculating Time Lord brain of his told him. Galaxies rose and died, civilizations perished, and young parents, mothers and fathers, often died leaving children behind, never to know the young men and women they would become. It was the way of the universe. How many children had been orphaned in the Time War? How many of his own people had he condemned to die without even the possibility of that future? What was one human man in the face of all of that death and destruction? He was Rose Tyler's father, he reminded himself. A man who had once existed, who had inexplicably loved Jackie, his wife, and had fathered a little girl he had never gotten to know. And he had meant something to them. He had been loved, desired, and wanted, and that mattered, very much so.

"What was he like?"

Rose laughed, a brittle sound that caught in her throat. "Oh, Mum says he was mad. He was a bit of an inventor I guess, loved to tinker. Always had new ideas for things, how to make them better, products, drinks, stuff like that. Bit of a dreamer, always wanted to be or do something better than his station in life."

"Sounds a bit like you," the Doctor pointed out gently. "Girl who just takes off into the stars with a madman in a box?"

Rose graced him with a watery smile. "I suppose."

"So how in the world does a man like that end up with your mother?"

"Oh, that!" Rose sniffled, rubbing her nose with her hand. "She met Dad at a party. He was in a band. He was older by a bit, but he had a guitar and a head full of ideas and she fell for them."

The Doctor tried to imagine Jackie Tyler, full of misery and fearful of the world outside of her dingy little estate flat ever falling in love with the likes of Peter Tyler. He found he failed. "Doesn't sound like your mother's type."

"Well, she did wear him down for a bit before he agreed," she chuffed. "But she loved him. Even if she thought he was mad, she loved him. There was never another man for her after that."

The Doctor couldn't help himself as he shot her a doubtful glance.

"I didn't say she ever loved any of those men," Rose replied, though there was a twitch at the corner of her mouth. "She's never remarried, never even thought about it. I guess the idea just hurt too much."

He knew something of that loss. And he knew the aching, dark chasm in left. And for a moment, though he'd never admit in a million years, he empathized with the peroxide blonde woman who hated him so. And he understood just why she was so protective of the daughter who insisted on flying off to see the stars. "How did he die?"

Rose wilted, what little humor she had melting as she hugged herself tighter. "He was hit by a car."

"When? How?"

Her full lips trembled, but her voice was steady, nearly by rote, a story she had learned so long ago and had been told so often she could recite it without thinking. "Mum said that died 7 November 1987. It was the day that Stuart Hoskins and Sarah Clarke got married. His family was against it, but Stuart had knocked up Sarah, and they were in love. Mum had always thought that the Hoskins had too many airs, thought themselves better than all of us. Anyway, she was friends with Sarah, was a bridesmaid. She'd been gone all morning helping her get ready. Dad was supposed to pick up the wedding present, some stupid vase. No one saw what happened. They just found him in the street. He was dead already. Mum didn't find out till after the wedding. He died there, all alone."

For a girl who was little more than a baby at the time, the grief was undeniable, and as much as he hated to admit it, he ached at the sight. Rose Tyler, this bright, shining girl with the spirit of her father, charging into the unknown, carried the weight of the death of a man she barely knew with her. A girl who had grown up fatherless, raised by a mother who could hardly let go of her grief enough to dare to see a better world. No wonder when he had appeared on her doorstep, peeking through her catflap, she had bounded off behind him, mindless of the danger she was putting herself in.

"That's what Mum always says," Rose shrugged, blinking back tears. She glanced at him pensive, thoughtful. "So I was thinking, could we…"

He knew what she was going to ask, even before she said it. He knew it in his gut. Perhaps he had known it since the moment that she had began her sad story.

"Could we go and see my dad when he was still alive?"

Alarms went off in some small corner of his brain, but he checked them as he asked, "Where is this coming from all the sudden?"

He knew. It hadn't been all the sudden. It had been days, weeks, months. Perhaps the thought had percolated from the beginning with her. But that wasn't what he was asking. He wanted to know why now. Rather than get a straight answer, however, Rose merely shrugged, blushing in embarrassment for even suggesting the idea.

"All right then, if we can't. If it goes against the laws of time or something, then never mind. Just leave it."

He should have left it at that, should have let her think it was against the laws of time or some other such daftness, but his pride and his sympathy got the better of him. Well...perhaps more his pride.

"No, I can do anything," he shot back, perhaps a tad cocky. "I'm just worried about you."

That much was true. Seeing the man she had longed to know all of her life could be a double edged sword. All of her dreams of who Peter Alan Tyler was would be confronted by the reality. And he would hate to think that the man that Jackie had told her daughter about was nothing like the man he was in real life. He worried at the possibility of Rose's heart being broken further if Pete Tyler turned out to not be the hero she envisioned him to be..

"I want to see him," she insisted. 

He rather hoped she would think on it just a little bit more. He was going to regret this, he knew it. "Your wish is my command. But be careful what you wish for."

For the first time in weeks, he saw the sun come out on Rose Tyler's face. "You'll do it? You'll let me see my dad?"

"I will. But only under very strict conditions." He rose, setting down the object he'd been playing with and wandering to the console. "This will be a bit like _A Christmas Carol_. You will observe but you won't interact with the world. You can't talk to you mother or go hug your grandparents."

"Right," Rose nodded, her nose wrinkling as she considered. "My grandparents have been dead for years. That would be weird."

"So has your dad," he shot back, punching buttons and flipping dials. "You know the date of their anniversary?"

"June," she replied promptly. "22 June 1985. They got married at a Marriott banquet hall, on the river."

"Classy," the Doctor muttered, punching at his screen.

"All they could manage and my grandfather had to pull some union strings for that," Rose shot back, only mildly nettled. "Mum always said it wasn't the fanciest, but that's not what mattered to her."

"You want to look for yourself?"

A gleam sparkled in her amber eyes, a grin spreading across her face. "See my parents getting married? That's every little girl's dream."

"Right, then. Off to crash your parents' wedding."

"This will be so weird," she giggled, her tongue caught in her teeth as she shook her head in disbelief. "So mad! What if they see me and wonder who I am?"

"You're some cousin from the Midlands, come to see the happy couple."

"You think they will buy that?"

"No, but it will confuse your mother long enough to book it out of there." He grinned madly at the idea of a befuddled Jackie and making a run for the TARDIS. "Hope the food is good."


	23. A Very Bad Idea

_I know how sad you are…_

Rose's parting shot stung like a slap to the face as he stormed down the empty street, his mood as gray as the sky above him. This had been a bad idea. In his gut he had known it. But he hadn't listened. This slip of a girl with her overdone makeup and bleached hair, all of her little winning ways, had manipulated him into doing what she wanted. And the worst part, he knew better! At nine-hundred-years-old, he knew better than to fall for something like this. But a few tears, a sad face, and he had agreed to it despite the danger and now look where they were.

Fine, he fumed, his boots stomping across asphalt and concrete. Let her sit her and stew in her new past. He had her TARDIS key, she was stuck here without it. She didn't need him anymore, she said as much. She had her father, the precious man she had always longed for. Had that been what he had come to represent to her? A father figure? Another Pete Tyler, one who would stand against mummy and let her do what she wanted? Had he unwittingly fed into some Electra-complex on her part, the strong, decisive, adventurous hero that her child's imagination made her daddy out to be? 

That idea, if possible, made him glower even harder. He had brought Rose Tyler on board his ship because he had thought her fun. He had been alone so long, hiding in the darkness, traveling here and there in a desperate bid to save random strangers to make up for the clawing, yawning guilt that threatened to swallow him whole. And it wasn't enough, it was never enough, the lives he saved. But there was Rose Tyler, this girl who had nothing remarkable going for her, save the brilliance, the curiosity, and the desire to be something more than just a chavvy shop girl from the estates in London. And he had seen something of himself in that girl or at least something of who he used to be long ago. A rebel Time Lord, someone who hated the fussy fastidiousness and pompousness of his own people, long drunk on their own power, who longed to live his life and not just watch it pass by. He had thought her own interest in him had been out of her own desire to see the universe. Perhaps he had been wrong in that.

Peter Tyler. Nothing remarkable about him. A decent enough bloke he supposed. But his life and his death had happened and now that was all nullified because of the childish longings of his daughter, a girl no more than an infant in Pete's mind. How it had hurt to stand there, watching Rose's willing defiance, knowing how much he had been tempted to go back, to change things, to save his planet, his family, his people. He had resisted because he understood the laws of time, he knew how things worked. Rose had acted, impulsive as always, headlong into trouble without a second thought. She had changed history, her personal history. She didn't see anything wrong with it, of course, and how could she. Silly ape like her, she couldn't possibly understand how something as seemingly meaningless to her as saving her father could have consequences on everything. If Rose Tyler's father lived, would she have remained on the estate? Would her father have finally made it big, moved her and Jackie someplace safer? Would there have ever been a Jimmy Stone or a Mickey Smith, no A-levels and Henrik's? Would she have been there when he entered into that building with his bomb, determined to stop the Nestene or die trying?

His Time Lord brain spun and branched out into possibilities, all the different things that would have happened had Pete Tyler lived. The multitude of minuscule changes, and already he could feel the timeline he stood in become brittle and frayed. His skin itched irritably under his jumper and jacket. Things were shifting and he had no idea how they would play out. Perhaps they would be minor, he hoped at least. But something in him told him that the universe never, ever let him off being so lucky.

Not the most important man in her life. He snorted irritably. She was implying that he was jealous of a dead man? Well, let her try to get out of this mess without him, then. She was no better than her boy toy, Adam, the prat who went and plugged things in his head. He got what he wanted and nearly changed history. And there he had stood, proclaiming Rose as the best. He had believed in her then. Now...well, clearly she had gotten what she wanted, just like he had. And let her try and fix it. Let her explain to her disbelieving parents that she is really Rose from twenty years in the future, come to save her father from dying. See how far she gets in that one before they lock her up and throw away the key. And will he be there to clean up the mess? No! Let her stew in it. She deserves it, if she thinks she can get along so well without him.

Question was, he realized moodily, would he be able to get along so well without her.

"Bollocks," he muttered, storming around the corner and towards the spot where he had parked the TARDIS when he had made the supremely stupid decision to give Rose a second go with her dad. He dug in his pocket for his key, pulling out Rose's instead. He ignored the wincing pain, smothering it in righteous indignation as he flipped it in his fingers.

His skin attempted to crawl off his back then, the hairs on his head standing up, prickling on end.

He paused, his hand wrapping around Rose's key as he glanced upwards to the November gloom. Fall in England, just like normal, drab, misty, and cool. Frowning, he jammed her key into the lock, turning it with practiced ease as he pushed open the doors of his beautiful ship.

Only to find an empty box inside.

Panic rose like bile in his throat as he threw himself inside, searching in his mind for the presence of his beloved TARDIS. She was there, somewhere, but not there, fading in and out like a bad radio signal. He reached out with his senses, attempting to find her, but instead felt time itself wave and crash, like a sea in a storm, and his stomach wanted to heave as if he were seasick. Nothing was fluid, everything was chaotic, mixing in on itself, time warping and distorting. Lines were crossing and touching, and a giant, gaping wound in time stood at the center of it all, like an eye in a hurricane.

Pete Tyler's death had been a fixed point. And Rose had ripped it out of existence.

"Rose," he cried, turning tale on the empty shell that had been his ship as he began to run back the way he came. This girl, this idiot of a human, had just managed to rip a hole in time and space and he knew what that meant. He had sensed it as he stood there, the hairs on his head standing on end, the chill on his spine. Only a few things in the universe caused that reaction and all of them were creatures touched by the Time Vortex itself. If he had his guess, and he knew it was a correct one, there would be Reapers there, sent to fix the wound. Sent to take out everything that was wrong. Which meant that they would destroy the entire timeline and everything in it, including Rose.

He ran, feet pounding through streets he now noticed were now eerily empty. The city, which should be bustling, was now becoming silent. His ears rang with the quiet. Powell Estate, a place he had never seen so still, was now like a graveyard, with only the sounds of televisions blaring in empty flats. He tore across the broken concrete, and the steps that smelled of piss, vomit, and stale beer, up to the floor where Rose lived, the one that Pete Tyler called home for now. The door was locked. They both were out there, somewhere.

His brain raced, as he pulled up the memory of Rose's story. Her father died on his way to a wedding, some friend of Jackie's, pregnant and marrying some man whose family disapproved. Chances were high if the family disapproved they were a bit on the stuffy end of things, meaning they'd not settle for a quick affair born out by the fact that Pete Tyler died getting a vase as a wedding present. Must be a nice affair, proper, with funny hats and in a church with a vicar. If Sarah was a friend of Jackie's meant she likely wasn't from as high of a class as the man she was marrying. Like as not she was a local girl, so perhaps the church was local, close enough for her friends, nice enough for his family. He tore down the stairs wishing he had picked a time when the Internet was widely used and he could just access a laptop or a cell phone and find what he needed.

As it turned out, however, he didn't need to look far. A standard, red BP telephone booth, paint faded and chipping but in working order, stood on the corner with a faded, torn copy of a phone book inside of it. He dashed in, scanning the pages as he did, looking for the first church he could find close to where they were. When he found the one he thought the most likely, he ripped the page out, stuffing it in his pocket as he ran.

If he was lucky - very lucky - he would get to Rose before the reapers did. And if he didn't….he didn't want to think of what would happen if he didn't. Instead, he chose to simply run faster.


	24. Fatherly Advice

The stones of the church scraped and groaned. Inside, between pews, the last remnants of this neighborhood huddled, eyeing the stained glass warily, fear and despair thick in the air. He had promised them he'd take care of it, that they would be safe. He wished, sometimes, his hearts weren't bigger than his brain. That was, of course, how he'd gotten them into this whole mess. He'd wanted to make Rose happy, had wanted to fulfill a wish. He hadn't thought through all the consequences, even in his fantastic brain, and then had been surprised when she had reacted the way she had. If he were put in the same position, given the same choice to change the future and save his people wouldn't he seriously consider doing it? Could he blame a teenage human girl for wanting to do the same?

"She's a lot like her mother in that." A voice muttered somewhere above where he sat in the choir. He glanced up towards Pete Tyler, trying hard to hide the utter surprise that blossomed at the other man's words.

"Whose like her mother?"

"Rose," Pete replied, settling on one of the old, wooden benches beside the Doctor. Panic rang in his ears as he desperately reasoned he must be referring to the baby not the grown woman.

"Yeah," the Doctor grinned, nodding his head to the carry cot, sitting on a pew near where Jackie was comforting a crying Mickey, child that he was. He ignored his spike of sympathy for the boy, knowing how frightened he must be and glanced up at Pete with as mad of a winning grin as he could manage.

Pete merely stared at him in that unnerving way Rose had. "I meant the grown up version of her."

The Doctor's smile fell, face growing grim. "You aren't supposed to know that."

"Yeah, well I pieced it together for myself," Pete replied, glancing in the direction of his infant daughter in the pew below. "Didn't take much. Though it's all hard to believe." He laughed nervously, eyes flickering to the creatures outside the stained glass windows. "A time machine. I mean, I've had some mad ideas, but that…"

He whistled low and appreciatively as the Doctor studied him. It wasn't hard to read Pete Tyler's timeline, of who he was beyond Rose's vague memories. A kid who grew up in a working class neighborhood, talented enough in the sciences he could have made a go at uni and A-levels, but parents too poor to manage the proper schools for that sort of thing. So, like any child of the 1970's, he got into a band, became something of a gad-about, doing odd jobs and tinkering, living the beans-on-toast sort of life that bored him to tears. He yearned to be something different, something better. But then he fell hard for Jackie, wanted to do right by her. Then there was marriage, and Rose, and…

And his life just stopped. Or it should have, save for Rose's stunt. Still, in whole there was a man with so much potential, who could have been anything. And life had taken away every chance he'd ever had at being something more. No Doctor had swooped in and taken him into the stars, rather, a kid without sense enough to know how to keep his eyes on the road swooped in and stole his life away.

"Rose is a lot like you, too, you know." The Doctor murmured, turning suddenly hot eyes away from the man beside him. "Amazingly like you."

"You think?" Pete sounded delighted by this. "She's got Jackie's looks, thank goodness, and certainly her set of lungs. Girl can squawk just like her mother."

"Can slap like her mother, too." The Doctor smirked, earning another snigger from Pete.

"Been on the end of one of Jackie's slaps, have you?" He rubbed at his face, as if recalling more than a few of those himself. "Yeah, I can imagine if you've taken off with our daughter. Jackie can't have been very pleased."

"Not exactly," the Doctor admitted vaguely. He couldn't say too much, not with the gaping wound that remained in time with Pete Tyler there. He had no idea how this would all fall out and he didn't want to make any of this any worse than it already was.

Pete glanced him over, slowly, frowning slightly at what he saw. "So, how old are you? Forty? Forty-five?"

Despite the eeriness of a nearly exact line of conversation he'd had with Pete's wife nearly twenty years in the future the Doctor couldn't help but be affronted, just a bit. " _Oi_ , do I really look all that old?"

"Older than I do, mate," Pete teased good-naturedly. "I'm just trying to figure out how I would let my daughter out of the door to hang about with someone like you unsupervised."

Guiltily, the Doctor shrugged. "You don't get much in a say in it, I guess. I mean...well, she is around twenty and all." So he fudged on the age, relative time and everything. "Besides, I hired her to work with me."

"You hired her?" Rather than become suspicious, as Jackie would, Pete's face lit up in surprise. "I mean, well, if you are a bloke with a time machine, must mean you are brilliant. Which means, I guess, she must be smart at whatever you are doing?"

The simple love and pride of a father for his daughter. It ached dully in his brain, a feeling he had experienced so many times with so many of his companions. But seeing with Pete, knowing this man in his proper time line never lived to see the amazing woman he had fathered, hit at him poignantly. Here he was, the Doctor, who could travel back at any point to see their lives. Pete would never be given that chance.

"Rose is brilliant," the Doctor replied honestly, his smile the first genuine one of the day. "She doesn't think she is, but she's dead smart and always knows to ask the right questions. She has a heart as big as the universe, and I don't think she's afraid of a single, damn thing."

The other man nodded, soaking up the words, shaking his head as he considered the little girl who lay down below. He was pleased and so damn proud. And despite himself and the danger lurking outside of the windows, the Doctor felt, for one small second, perhaps this was all worth it, to make this man happy.

"So is she your, what? Assistant?" Curiosity mixed with vague worry in the eyes of the other man, and the Doctor rushed to cut off any assumptions that Jackie jumped to almost immediately when she had confronted him.

"Something like that, yeah. We aren't...nothing unseemly is going on."

"I didn't think so." Pete held up his hands reassuringly, though the Doctor knew it had crossed his mind. "I mean, you know, I would just hope that she would end up with a good bloke someday. But she's young yet. Bet I'm pulling my hair out with some of the boys beating at our door."

Oh, if only that were true. "Yeah, Rose picks winners," the Doctor muttered, glancing at the terrified Mickey. "Though, some aren't so bad. Just need to grow up a bit."

Beside him, Pete guffawed, running hands through his already thinning, ginger hair. "This is madness. A time machine. Rose. She's just a baby and there she is, all grown up. It's like...I blinked and I missed everything."

In that minute, the Doctor had a feeling Peter Tyler knew. He likely worked it all out, clever him, clever like his daughter, his extremely bright, human mind making the connections that the Doctor was unwilling to lay out for him. And it broke his hearts to see that growing realization, even if Pete smiled and shrugged in the same breezy way his daughter did.

"If my daughter is traveling with you, Doctor, let me give you a word of advice. Don't ever take her for granted. Not one little bit, you hear. Because if she's half the woman that she seems to be right now, she's something special. She will turn the world upside down. And…"

He paused, eyes growing misty as he gazed at the baby who stared back up at him from below with her steady, infant gaze. "And I don't want to see my little girl hurt by you or anyone else. You keep her safe. You hear me. Make sure she gets home to her mother."

All the Doctor could do was nod solemnly at the man, wishing for all the world that Pete Tyler could have lived. "I won't let anything happen to her."

"Right," he smiled, brilliant as the sun, and rubbed at his sniffling nose with the back of his hand. "And if you lay a hand on her, mind…"

"Did I just not say it wasn't like that?" The Doctor cried in horror, eyes widening at the other man's laughter.

"Right, right, just...couldn't help myself." He smirked, glancing over the Doctor's shoulder, his teasing melting as soon as he did. "Here comes trouble."

"Jackie," the Doctor muttered as herself came hustling up the steps, all God-awful satin and organdy, Rose's carrier in hand as she glared at her husband.

"Right, world is ending, and the two of you sitting here, laughing it up." She turned her baleful eyes on the Doctor, who tried to look extremely busy with a copy of the Common Book of Prayer. "Pete, can I have a word with you...alone?"

Her tone was directed straight at the Doctor as if he had anything to do with any of this. Why was it that no matter what the time period that woman hated him?

"You!" She eyed him warily, even resignedly. "Can you watch Rose for me? I figure she's safe enough with you."

The Doctor blinked. Then blinked again. "Wait a minute. I want to keep those words for posterity."

Before Jackie could even register what he meant, Pete grabbed Rose's cot and handed her off, bustling Jackie off before she could ask too many questions. Even over the distance he could hear her shrill whispers berating poor Pete's ear. He sighed, glancing down at the wee little infant, her cinnamon brown eyes watching him just as they always did when she knew he was up to something.

"I'm working on fixing this, all right." He muttered to her, snagging a corner of her blanket to wipe at the drool oozing down her chin. Rose was a rather cute mite, he had to admit it. "Don't think being cute means I'm letting you off the hook for this either," he muttered, rocking her carrier. "But, I suppose we'll have that discussion with the older you, yeah?"

Infant Rose's response was to simply yawn tiredly and snuggle in to take a kip.


	25. On a Street Corner

Strange things happened on street corners. People passed each other everyday on these things. Sometimes they simply ignored one another, thinking of nothing more important than what they wanted in their coffee or what sounded appetizing for lunch. Sometimes they'd connect, bump into each other, smile, flirt, catch a taxi home together and end up falling in love. And sometimes a hero was born on a street corner, someone who stood up for something that was good and right at great personal cost to themselves. Those people were often only considered special in hindsight.

Peter Alan Tyler was one of those, a man who stood up and made a decision to save everyone, even at the cost of his own life. No one would remember that, not even his wife. But his daughter would, and so would the Doctor.

"Go to him," he whispered to Rose, who stood stock still in the church yard, frightened. "Quick!"

With all the fleetness of foot she had developed as his companion she ran to her fallen father's side. All around her the word recorrected itself, the timelines, which had up to his point been tempestuous and torn, settled. But they had changed, faintly. The Doctor could feel it. And the answer was obvious as he gazed on the church yard, with Jackie watching in dawning realization and horror.

Pete had not died alone.

Rose knelt by the form of her father as he moved slowly behind her. He didn't know if she said a word, and if she didn't, it wasn't any of his business. Some things were private and Pete deserved that one, final moment with his daughter. He knew, however, by the time he reached where she sat, huddled with tears in her eyes, that he was gone.

Slowly, achingly, she leaned over, brushing a gentle kiss on the forehead of the man she had finally gotten to know, her real father, and not the myth that Jackie had built up with all the well-meaning intention of a grieving mother. She turned to look up at the Doctor, thickly coated eyes brimming with tears.

Without a word, he held his hand out to her. She took it and rose, following him across the rain-sodden street to the TARDIS he had relocated just across the way. In the distance on the damp air he could hear the sirens and the broken wail of Jackie's screams. Rose paused in stride, just for an instant, but didn't turn around.

"Best get inside," the Doctor murmured softly, wanting more than anything to stop the heartache for his companion. Resolute, Rose nodded, as he unlocked the TARDIS doors and let her in.

She was silent as she meandered up the walkway to the jumpseat. He followed quietly behind her, watching her as she folded up on the worn upholstery, her knees pulled to her chest, her trainers digging into the seat. He left her to her misery for the moment, quietly making his way to the console, plugging in coordinates and lifting levers, the Time Rotor groaning into life.

"We are we going?" Her voice was muffled and thick, and he knew without looking at her that she was crying.

"Nowhere," he replied. "The Vortex, nothing special."

He turned to her, leaning his back against the console. He didn't know where to begin or what to say, a rarity for him, who knew everything and could speak wittily in thousands of languages. But in this instance, he found himself lost as to what to say to any of it, except to mumble the words, "I'm sorry."

She blinked at him, face red and streaked with mascara. "For what?"

"For all of this," he replied, shoving his hands into his trouser pockets. "I'm sorry I took you to that day of all days. And I'm sorry I let things get out of hand, and…"

"Doctor," she cut in, sniffing as she ran her fingers across her sodden cheeks. "You weren't the one...I was the one who changed time. I was the one who caused those Reaper things to come, that let all those people die, that...that let you…"

And here she crumbled, her voice cracking and shattering as sobs broke out of her, deep and anguished. The Doctor stared, long moments, unsure of what to do, having never really experienced Rose Tyler in anguish before. Finally, some deep recess of his brilliant mind kicked his arse and suggested he hug her, and so he found himself on his knees, wrapping her tightly to his chest.

"You died, I saw it, the Reaper, and…" Her words garbled into his jumper, the tears soaking through to his skin.

"Rose, I'm here, it's all right. I didn't die." Wink out of existence for a moment, yes, but he hardly noticed before he was back.

"All those people...Mickey's Gran."

"Are all alive, Rose. No one is dead."

He realized it the moment he said it, but it was out there. Rose stilled and pulled away, her face so broken.

"Except for my Dad."

He nodded. "It had to be, Rose. It was a fixed point, your dad's dying. I'm so sorry."

"I know," she whispered, fresh tears oozing down her cheeks. "It's just...you know, all those stories from when I was little, all those details, Dad never really died to me. I mean, I knew he was dead, but I didn't know him. I didn't see it. I never knew him. And now. Now it was real. It meant something. He was this man, this amazing man, and he died again, only this time it meant something."

"This time you lost something," he pointed out gently, reaching up to brush away her tears. "And I do know how that feels."

"Yeah," she nodded, her lip trembling. "Does it ever go away, this feeling?"

Grief? Loss? For him? "It will," he lied, wanting it to be true for her. "It takes time."

"How long," she pleaded.

He wouldn't know for sure, he thought to himself. He was still there. "I don't know."

Funny that, a Time Lord who didn't know how much time it took to fix a broken heart or two. But this was Rose, the girl who had come to fill the void of his own broken hearts and she was hurting. This was the first loss she had ever felt, the first death that had any real, meaningful impact on her. He wanted to tell her something more poignant and concrete, something to hang on to.

"I talked to your dad a bit, you know." He shifted to settle in a sitting position on the floor, holding her hands in his as he did. "Got to know him. He was an amazing guy, your dad. Smart. Could have been something with an A-level or two. Kind of like someone else I know."

That brought a ghost of a smile on his companions face. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Pete Tyler was a smart, funny, warm, caring man, with a heart a mile wide. He figured out who you were, didn't he?"

She nodded, sniffing loudly.

"And, he figured out how to fix the problem. Here he was, this guy, this regular bloke, with a wife and a daughter to think of. But he figured out the truth. And he sacrificed his future happiness to do perhaps the most heroic thing he would ever do. He was a brave man, Rose, a lot braver than I am."

"Doctor, I see you do those kind of things everyday," she quickly admonished.

"Yeah, but I don't have anyone waiting for me at the end of the day, do I?" He met her saddened gaze evenly. "There's your dad, piecing together his destiny, he ran to it instead of away from it. And he saved the world."

His words cost him, admitting that much truth to her. But he could see the influence they had on her, the pride that rose within her at the thought of just who her father really was. He wasn't just an imagined hero that was spun out of Jackie's stories to her daughter, he was an honest to goodness heroic figure, one Rose had met and seen. He was the type of man every father should be in their child's eyes.

"Pete Tyler was an amazing man." He squeezed her fingers in his. "And you are in so many ways just like him. He was so proud of you and who you turned out to be. And I can tell you this, that man loved you more than anything. And that was what made what he did so important to him. Because it gave you a chance."

Something of her long-lost smile rose on her woebegone face. "He was proud of me?"

"Yeah," the Doctor replied, relieved to see a break in the gloom at last. "He was so thrilled with you. Not so thrilled with me taking off with you."

"Be glad Mum never caught on till the end," Rose giggled wetly, pulling a hand away to rub at damp eyes. "She might have smacked you back into the proper timeline."

"It's good to know some things in this universe are constant, like your mother being a hoyden."

"Yeah, you could tell who wore the pants there. And that hair!"

"Now you know where the hole in the ozone layer came from."

"A stiff breeze wouldn't move it!" Rose surmised, outright laughing. "It's so weird, though. Seeing them together. Mum loves being safe, always has. There's a reason we never left the estates, never did anything different when Dad died. She's afraid of change. Dad was anything but."

"Still, I think that was why she loved him," the Doctor surmised, considering the sad woman hiding away in her dingy flat, with her telly and her shepherd's pie. "Pete forced her to dare, just a little, even if she whinged and complained the whole way through it."

"That's Mum!" There was both sadness and fondness in that response, and utter exhaustion. It had been a trying day for them both. He unfolded himself from the floor beside her, standing and pulling her up gently.

"To bed with you, and no argument. Don't want to see you for at least another ten hours."

"Thought you usually don't give me more than seven," she muttered, allowing herself to be pushed in the direction of the hallway out of the console room.

"Special circumstances, don't expect this all the time." He shoved her lightly in the direction of her room. Her shuffling footsteps moved across the grating as she called a final "G'night" before disappearing into the darkness. He watched her go silently for several long moments before turning back to his ship.

Time had changed. They hadn't come from this adventure completely unscathed. Whether Rose knew it or not she had altered her parents' past ever so slightly. What that meant, if anything, was hard to say. But for right now he couldn't bring himself to care. Instead, he moved his fingers across his monitor, letters in Gallifreyan flying as he pulled up an image he hadn't looked at in centuries. A lithe, dark haired girl, with sparkling eyes and a horrible tendency of getting herself in trouble when he wasn't looking. It was she who had convinced him to take off on this mad life of his, who had taken his hand and pulled him toward the old, retired TARDIS, had agreed to his insane plan. He had loved her so dearly, and he had been so proud of her, and it had broken his hearts when he had locked the doors of his beloved TARDIS on her, leaving her behind with the man she had loved. If he had been a selfish man, he'd have kept her by his side. But he gave her that chance, her best chance, at finding a life for herself on her own terms.

For the first time since regenerating to find no one and nothing left of his people he let himself weep for what was lost.


	26. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

The air was crisp, his breath steaming in the midnight glow of street lamps and twinkling, colored Christmas lights. Even in the gray, dingy corner of the world known as the Powell Estates, the holidays shone brightly in dangling strings tacked to balcony edges, the occasional tree showing through windows. It was still with the breathless hush of slumber. Not a creature was stirring, he chuckled, even as the sounds of rats scampering across broken brick and concrete belied the rest of that poem.

This was a bad idea, a monumental one, but in the wake of all the other, really stupid things he had done in the last few hours, it seemed relatively minor. Rose had been sent to bed, she'd never know the truth. A few side trips and he was at Christmas 1998, the next-to-last Christmas before the start of the new millenium, at least by human reckoning of the time. It was also one of the very last Christmases of Rose's childhood.

He stared up at the flat above him, a red bicycle leaning against his hip.

He hadn't be sure why red, Rose was more of a pink or purple sort of girl, but something about it felt that it was right. It was candy apple red, the sort that he'd seen her brush on her nails from time to time, with white trim and a white leather seat. It shone with chrome and lacquer, the tires still smelling of the factory, that was how new it was. When he saw it he could hear the whispered, forbidden allure that it brought to the minds of any child who saw it, the promise of freedom, of travel, of adventures far away from the watchful eye of annoying parents. It was for any young child their own personal TARDIS, a wonderful machine that allowed them to run away, far away, and be free, for a few hours at least, until empty stomachs and tired bodies turned their thoughts towards home.

The Doctor grinned, stroking the leather of the seat, thinking of what something like this would have meant to Rose. And he thought of Pete, too, the father who would have loved the chance to give it to her. The father who would have understood just how much it would have meant to her. Perhaps it was for him as much as for Rose that the Doctor decided to do this, to do something for her that that man couldn't.

The steps to Rose's floor still smelled as much in 1998 as they did in 1987 and would in 2005. His boots scraped, the bike bouncing as he drug it up, depositing it on her floor and wheeling it down. Her door was locked tight, save for the cat flap, but he dug out his sonic screwdriver, a bright blue in the darkness. It popped open easily enough. He held his breath as he carefully maneuvered himself and the bicycle through the door and past Jackie Tyler's ever listening ears.

The darkness in the house was broken only by the sparkling lights on the white tinsel tree. An abomination in terms of Earth Christmas traditions in the Doctor's opinion, he'd been a bit like that Charlie Brown fellow, preferred the real stuff. But, let Jackie have her white tree with pink garland, however atrocious it was. Maybe for next Christmas he'd send her a real one that smelled like a tree for a change and didn't look as if it came from Salasian sex shop. Not that Jackie knew where Salasia Six was, and he preferred it that way. Him knowing about it would only confirm her worst fears regarding her daughter.

Quietly as he could manage, he propped the bike in front of the tree, bright and shining in the golden lights. Out of his pocket he pulled a giant bow for it, tying it to the chrome handlebars and a large tag that simply said, "To Rose, From Father Christmas". Best to keep the mystery. Besides, how could he explain the concept of himself to her before she had met himself?

He made his way out of the shabby flat as quickly as he could, fearful of what would happen should a precocious Rose appear at her bedroom door. Locking the front behind himself, he hummed a random Christmas tune, simultaneously smug and proud of himself. He'd have wagered even money that there were few great Christmases in Rose's young life, good ones, yes, but probably not fantastic ones. It made him unaccountably giddy to hold that secret, to know it was him who would put a smile on the face of a girl who deserved so much more than this universe had given her.

The Doctor rounded the corner from the dimly lit stairwell, whistling, when he stopped. He paused, feeling that prickling sensation once again, similar to when the Reapers had appeared, but different, fainter in a sense, but just as wrong. His skin crawled as he turned, eyes searching the darkness for whatever it could be, hearts ice in his chest as he wondered what in the hell could have gone wrong? This was Christmas, an innocuous one at best, and he had done practically nothing to upset the still delicate balance of time. He had checked.

He spun around, tempted to shout at whatever it was, but stopped at the sight of a man, standing at the distant corner. Normally a man standing by himself in this neighborhood at 3 AM would not necessarily be that strange, but it took the Doctor less than an instant to know that whoever this man was, he was the source of the disturbance. Something was just intrinsically wrong about him. Why that was it was hard to tell. He was too far away to see clearly, standing in shadows as he too watching the Doctor. Nothing in particular stood out about him, save for the long, greatcoat that spoke to a period fifty years earlier in Earth history and a war that a man that young shouldn't know anything about except through history books. Still, those things were easy enough to get at a surplus store, he surmised, it didn't necessarily mean a thing. Then why was he standing there, staring so poignantly at the Doctor? And why did the Doctor have the mad desire to flee from him without even knowing why. And what in the bloody hell was he doing anywhere near the Powell Estates?

" _Oi_ ," he shouted, his voice bouncing off the sleepy walls of the filthy estate. "Who are you?"

The figure didn't flinch. He didn't answer either. Rather, he pulled away, turning on heels, moving in the darkness the other direction.

"You!" The Doctor called after him, willing his feet to give chase and finding them planted firmly on the ground, as if his muscles refused to have anything to do with the man. He swore mildly, but didn't press the point. The man was gone anyway, absorbed into the darkness, missing. Even the creepy presence was gone, the Doctor was now left with only the disconcerting feeling of having missed out on something important.

"No good deed goes unpunished," he muttered darkly, running his hands across his scalp nervously, making his way as quickly as he could to the TARDIS. Even she was unsettled as he opened the doors, making a nervous hum as strode up to the console. He patted one of her struts affectionately as he made his way to the monitor. After a few brief moments of scanning the area, he found nothing that could explain the presence. Whatever it was, it had left for now without any further explanation on what it was or what it was doing in the Powell Estates. In frustration he shuffled Post-It notes stuck around the screen, all scribbled in Gallifreyan with different notes to himself, such as "Don't forget the jam." and "Don't press that big red button, three over to the left." He stopped at the one stuck on the top of his screen which looked like nothing more than a creative doodle. It was his native language's equivalent for "bad wolf".

His hearts slammed against his chest. Bad Wolf. Those words repeated over and over again, ever since he had taken Rose's hand that long ago day. Something primal and powerful and terrifying, and he kept finding traces of it all over the world. Was that stranger part of it? If so, what was he? It kept following Rose, at least her home, was it tied to her? Worse, was it dangerous to her? And what intention did it have with him, the last of the Time Lords? The Doctor didn't know. Honestly, in a way, perhaps he didn't want to know. But he did what he always did best in situations like this. He decided it was simply better to just run.

By the time Rose awoke hours later, puffy faced and with the residue of tear stained mascara on her cheeks, he had already moved them three-quarters of a century to London of 2066, and the grand celebrations of a millennia of rule of the descendants of William the Conqueror and the English kingdom. London was in a celebratory mood, filled with parties and parades and impromptu gatherings on the street, tourists filled the hotels, eager to take part in the festivities. Of a particular shock to Rose was the speech given by now King William V, who in her time was not much older than Rose herself, but was now a venerable gentleman in his 80's, still ruling capably even in an age where monarchy was seen as something antiquated.

"He was so hot when he was young," Rose lamented, staring at the flat screen where the king stood next to his wife, Catherine, and his heir, George, Prince of Wales, now a middle aged man, surrounded by children of his own.

"I think age suits him well," The Doctor defended, rolling his eyes at his companions shallowness. "His gran ruled for next to forever. It's in the genes with that family, came from Victoria, something with her passes longevity in this clan. She lived clear into the 20th century."

"Must be all the inbreeding," Rose teased, dragging him along, through the darkened streets, to a punky little shop covered in red, white, and blue. Rose delighted in perusing cheap mementos of the event, trying to convince him to buy a tawdry, plastic crown he refused to put on his head or tempting him with a teapot with all the British monarchs for the last thousand years on it. She settled finally on a Union Jack t-shirt and a book on royal scandals for her mother before suggesting they grab a pint and head back to the TARDIS.

Not another word was said about Pete Tyler. No mention was made of Reapers. By the time they had finished at the pub, filled with chips, fish and bitter, Rose was grinning and smiling and shining again. And while it didn't completely hide the shadow of loss he still saw in her eyes it was better than where she was. It was what he needed from her, her joy, and he would take it.

"So where to next," she wondered, meandering with him through the streets back to where the TARDIS was parked in an alley, out of the way.

"Oh, I don't know. We could wander to a different planet this time? Barcelona, the planet, not the city, that's a fantastic place. Or Bettlegeuse, full of really mad people. Met this interesting fellow there once. He wanted to be a travel writer."

"What happened to him," she mused as they came upon the TARDIS.

"Don't know. Heard he got stuck here on Earth for a while, and had I known, I'd have offered to help, but he never searched me out. Hope he got off, finally, he was a tosser once you got a drink or two into him."

"You have the most interesting friends," she laughed as he opened the door. "I don't care. Someplace fun and different. Something I've never seen before."

"That's the spirit, Rose Tyler," he beamed, thrilled to have his companion back once again.


	27. The Constant Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is dialogue in here that is quite obviously not mine.

The Blitz. London. World War II. Well wasn't this just magnificent?

Of course his jeopardy-friendly companion had swanned off somewhere in the middle of a war, wearing a Union Jack all over her chest no less. Well, no fear that anyone local would assume she was a spy. They might wonder about her sanity, however, not to mention her clothing choices in an era where women wearing pants was still considered mildly scandalous to the blue haired, pearl wearing types. Still, in the grand scheme of time periods to lose Rose Tyler in, World War II was relatively minor in comparison to say, the Battle of Hastings. Which left him to consider the newest problem on his plate; a strange child wandering the neighborhood in a gas mask, scaring the hell out of the other war orphans wandering the broken and ruined streets of London. And the only one to seem to know anything was a teenager Rose's age looking far younger with her twin braids and her school-girl outfit. She knew things, he could tell, with that gut sense that said that something wasn't right, and screamed that there was some connection between the wraith like boy wandering around and the girl who seemed to want to avoid him. So the Doctor decided to do what he did best, stick his nose into something that was clearly none of his business and see what he turned up.

Clearly Nancy, which turned out to be the girl's name, wanted nothing to do with him though. She glared at him over her purloined roast, trying to ensure each of the homeless tots rounding the far-too-well-laid-table for the middle of the war ate their food properly, chewing before they swallowed, and eating their vegetables. She didn't trust him, didn't need to be a genius to figure that. But why should she? Living rough like this, out on her own, eldest of a pack of orphans, trying to ensure they got a square meal. The mother hen she was, and clearly she didn't approve of either the Doctor, his following her, or his predilection for blondes - well, specifically Rose, of whom there was still no sign.

And there was no denying it. The minute the eery child appeared at the door, scatting the children like dust to a wind, it was Nancy who warned him away despite the obvious desire she had to run. Why this child? And why this girl? And who was this poor child's mysterious mother? Possibilities and questions ran through his brain. The ship, could have something to do with that. Could be an alien race. Maybe someone inhabiting a child? But if so, who? And why would they chase after a human girl demanding to see their mummy? If it was a non-human, it was likely psychic in nature. Perhaps a child of that race? Perhaps a creature that was trying to communicate the best it could with a limited human child's vocabulary at its disposal? Why a human child? And what did the girl, Nancy, mean when she said that the child was empty? And how did it turn others into something like him?

He should look for Rose, he admitted that, and chances were his companion was sitting at the TARDIS fuming that he had wandered off without her and was in the middle of some mystery she couldn't muck about in. And, if he were a nice, kind, and benevolent Time Lord he'd go find her and ensure she was all right. But, then again Rose always did have the tendency to get into trouble in things like these. And knowing her and that bleeding heart of hers she'd do something rash because there was a child involved and they would have the Dalek in Utah all over again. Rose was a smart girl, bright, capable, she could manage for a little bit on her own without needing him to come in and save the day. Safer that way too, like as not. And he certainly didn't feel the least bit guilty about tailing Nancy in the darkness without Rose there. He felt even less so when she led him to the bombed out Albion Hospital, surrounded by barbed wire and security, a crater sitting squarely in what should have been it's front lawn.

His sonic screwdriver made quick work of the lock at the gate. His memory did the rest. He'd been in Albion before, at least part of it, in Rose's time. It had been where they had taken the Slitheen's so-called "alien" for an autopsy, guarded by a bevvy of Britain's finest. Now the hospital was deathly still, no mutilated pigs running its halls. The shadows crept, lengthening and deepening as his booted heels thumped dully along tiled hallways. He surmised that the ship out front had been thought to be a bomb and the hospital was evacuated - ll save for this mysterious Dr. Constantine Nancy mentioned. Why was he here?

It didn't take him long to figure out why.

The ward lights flickered with the rumble of explosions in the distance, swaying in the dimness. He opened the double doors, peeking through the large panes of glass at the still figures laying in the various beds. Every one of them with a gas mask on, stiff and unmoving, like corpses in a morgue, no sign of life from any of them.

All except for one. The man in the white coat, leaning on his walking stick.

"You'll find them everywhere; in every bed, in every ward." His voice was heavy and worn, as if exhausted by the idea. "Hundreds of them."

"Yes, I saw." The Doctor glanced around him in vague horror. "Why are they still wearing gas masks?"

"They're not," the old man replied matter-of-factly. "Who are you?"

The typical question to ask and one the Doctor wasn't completely ready to answer. "I'm...are you the doctor?"

The man gave a curt nod, settling heavily into a single, steel frame chair, looking as if he couldn't take the effort to keep himself on his own two feet anymore. "Doctor Constantine. And you are?"

Again, the Doctor evaded. "Nancy sent me."

"Nancy?" Clearly the other man knew exactly who he was talking about. "That means you must've been asking about the bomb."

"Yes," the Doctor admitted. No reason to beat about the bush.

"What do you know about it?"

"Nothing," the Doctor shrugged. "It's why I was asking. What do you know?"

Constantine sighed, casting a grieved eye around the victims in his ward. "Only what it's done."

The Doctor watched his gaze, considering. "These people? They were caught up in the blast?"

"None of them were." Constantine chuckled sadly, his pained laughter choking and catching in his chest until it turned into a hacking cough. He leaned against the ward sister's desk, catching his breath, his brow breaking out into a fine sheen of sweat, shining under the sallow lights.

"You're looking sick."

"Dying, I should think." Constantine corrected with the same dry humor. "I just haven't been able to find the time."

He eyed the Doctor over with eyes still sharp despite his professed demise. "Are you a doctor?

"I have my moments." The Doctor was glad he didn't give away his name too quickly.

"Have you examined any of them yet?"

"No," he replied, moving towards the nearest beds to study one of the victims.

"Don't touch the flesh," Constantine ordered behind him. 

The Doctor didn't, glancing between faces of victims, horrifically blank in the uniformity of their gas masks. "Which one?"

"Any one," Constantine replied. The Doctor chose the nearest, pulling out his sonic screwdriver, directing it first generally over the bodies, then specifically to the faces under the mask. He watched the read out play out, frowning in confusion as he went, the fused skin to the rubber, the massive trauma to the head and chest cavity, the damaged organs, the random scar.

"Conclusions," Constantine called to him as he puzzled over the results.

"Massive head trauma, mostly to the left side." The Doctor studied the still form in puzzlement. "Partial collapse of the chest cavity, mostly to the right. There's some scarring on the back of the hand and the gas mask seems fused to the flesh. But I can't see any burns."

"Examine another one," Constantine prompted him. So he did.

"This isn't possible," he breathed, confounded by what he saw.

"Examine another," Constantine urged.

He did.

"This isn't possible," the Doctor reiterated, turning to the man hunched in his chair.

"No?" Constantine wondered as the Doctor continued to go from body to body.

"They've all got the same injuries."

"Yes." Constantine affirmed.

"Exactly the same," the Doctor continued, questions spinning so fast he couldn't speak them.

"Yes." Constantine sighed wearily.

"Identical, all of them, right down to the scar on the back of the hand." The Doctor whipped around to face the huddled man, for once at a loss as to a phenomenon like this. "How did this happen? How did it start?"

Constantine regarded him firmly, his skin pale and eyes sunken. "When the bomb dropped there was just one victim."

"Dead," the Doctor surmised.

"At first," Constantine hedged. "His injuries were truly dreadful. By the following morning, every doctor and nurse who had treated him, who had touched him, had those exact same injuries. By the morning after that, every patient in the same ward, the exact same injuries. Within a week, the entire hospital. Physical injuries as plague. Can you explain that?"

The Doctor couldn't. He'd never heard of any disease or pathogen close to that, not in a thousand years.

"What would you say was the cause of death?" Constantine pressed, curious to his answer.

"The head trauma," the Doctor reasoned, the most obvious of the injuries and the most deadly. Any sort of trauma was dangerous with the brain.

"No." Constantine shook his head dolefully.

The Doctor moved on to the next most obvious, with the chest caved in as it was. "Asphyxiation?"

"No." Constantine said simply.

"The collapse of the chest cavity?"

"No."

"All right," the Doctor gave in. "What was the cause of death?"

"There wasn't one." The other man's reply was even as he glanced at all of the inert bodies. "They're not dead."

With a whap of his walking stick against the metal waste basket by the ward sister's desk, all of the bodies in the place sat up in unison. The Doctor's spine attempted to crawl up into his brain as first one, then the other of his hearts lodged in his throat. Every still, anonymous face, with their over large snouts and their hangdog, glass eyes turned towards him as his primal urge to run, fast and hard, attempted to pull him away from this place.

"It's all right," Constantine tried to reassure him, perhaps sensing the fear. "They're harmless. They just sort of sit there. No heartbeat, no life signs of any kind. They just don't die."

An entire hospital of zombie-like beings. Perfectly healthy humans one moment, the next succumbing to the same injuries that he would bet that small boy roaming London at the moment had. How did that even happen?

"And they've been left here? No one's doing anything?" Mild disgust mixed with pity as he considered them, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, all left. Did anyone notice them missing? Or were they assumed to be lost somewhere in the rubble, the casualties of the chaos being unleashed on London every night.

With the sigh of fabric and the creak of springs, each of the faceless bodies laid back onto their cots, heads turned towards the ceiling. All of them remained silent.

"I try to make them comfortable," Constantine reasoned, though the Doctor suspected that he too had begged that same question as to why no one seemed to care. "What else is there?"

"Just you?" It was more of a statement than a real question. "You're the only one here?"

Constantine nodded, looking, if possible, more haggard than he did when they began to speak. All alone, this human, a man like any other. A man with a calling, to heal and to fix and to never leave the patients' side, even when things looked their bleakest. He could have run away, like Nancy, try to hide from a phenomenon he little understood. But Constantine was a doctor, and that title, by nature, couldn't flee from something like this, nor could he hide and pretend it wasn't happening. If any creature in the universe understood that calling implicitly, it was the Doctor. It was why he had taken the title as his name.

"Before the war began I was a father and a grandfather," Constantine mused quietly, regarding the Doctor with a depth of sadness that the Time Lord knew only too intimately. "Now, I am neither. But I'm still a doctor."

"Yeah, I know the feeling." Constantine's words drove straight to the Doctor's core. He understood that place far better than the other man could ever imagine and he ached for the man who had taken on this burden alone, because no one else would.

"I suspect," Constantine sighed, turning back the Doctor's attention. "The plan is to blow up the hospital and blame it on a German bomb."

Convenient in covering up the truth, but ineffectual when that little boy was still running around free within London. "Probably too late."

"No. There are isolated cases." The old man gasped in pain, groaning as he continued. "Isolated cases breaking out all over London."

He coughed and gasped and there was no denying what the old doctor claimed. He was dying. He hadn't been lying. The Doctor began to rush to him, but the old man waved him off, panic in his wide, frightened eyes.

"Stay back," he ordered, begging. "Stay back. Listen to me. Room 802. That's where they took the first victim, the one from the crash site."

He was visibly shaking now, the sheen of sweat turning into a flood, his skin whitening as he struggled to continue, hacking little coughs creeping up his throat, as if something was trying to cut off his words.

"And you must find Nancy again," he managed finally.

"Nancy?"

"It was her brother," Constantine replied, gasping again, in pain as he nodded his head knowingly despite the cough wracking him. "She knows more than she's saying. She won't tell me, but she might…."

He stopped. All shaking and quivering in the old man stilled. The desperate, pleading look in his eyes dulled and faded, winking out of existence in an instant. In it's place, a simple, vacant expression met the Doctor's horrified gaze.

"Mummy?" Constantine's voice took on the same, eerie, unearthly quality of the boy wandering the streets, innocent and yet somehow horribly dreadful in it's dead, dreamy quality. "Are you my Mummy?"

Before the Doctor could even respond, Constantine's mouth opened wide, a groaning, stretching, gurgling sound erupting as from out of his esophagus a muzzle to a gas mask appeared. In fascination and fear, the Doctor watched, as the man's face morphed, the black rubber growing and forming over his nose, his cheeks, his chin, glass blocking off his eyes. He could almost see the man's chest cave in, the bones of his ribs cracking and popping with a wet, crunching sound. What had a moment ago been a man to be admired, now sat a zombie as blank faced as the others, all signs of life now extinguished.

"I'm so sorry," the Doctor murmured. He hadn't run a minute ago. He didn't run now. He turned very slowly and sadly from the room full of the undead. As quietly as he could, he slipped away, disturbing none of the empty occupants as he passed.


	28. The Time Agent Dilemma

He should have known the minute his back was turned Rose would go and find herself another pretty boy to drag along with her. The whiz kid in Utah had been bad enough, what with him passing out at every little thing and implanting ports into his head so he could have access to all history everywhere. Now she had to bring a Time Agent with her - pretty, suave, charming Time Agent.

The Doctor hated Time Agents.

In all fairness, most Time Lords hated Time Agents, or at least they had when they had been around to care. Human beings finally got smart enough, eventually, to create their own time travel devices and so with all the thundering enthusiasm and bumbling clumsiness of any children ventured off into all of time and space to see what sort of messes they could make. And when there were Time Lords, and when they could catch them, they would at least try to clean them up and curse the day that humans learned that particular trick. At least in some point in the future, after a century or two of realizing just how bloody difficult it was to keep track of timelines and how devastatingly intelligent one must be to understand the true beauty and complexity of time and space, humans eventually give up the enterprise, which in the Doctor's opinion they shouldn't have been in anyway without having the right sort of brain for it, (and perhaps he had manipulated and tweaked here and there to aid to its demise).

He'd never liked the agency or their agents. The very secret nature of the Time Agency bred dishonesty and amoralism on a shocking scale. For all their many faults, and there were plenty, that was one thing the Time Lords hadn't suffered from. Manipulative and conceited, he'd found traces of Time Agents and their meddling for centuries. Which was perhaps why, out of gut instinct, he hadn't particularly liked Jack Harkness. That and his callous, con artist's attitude to something as dangerous as a Chula warship. Idiot playing with fire, he was, cock sure and out to make a buck at others expense. It certainly wasn't because of his truly astonishing good looks or the way that his smile made even the Doctor go a bit weak in the knees...or the way Rose turned giddy around him, batting her mascara-caked eyelashes at him. That certainly wasn't it at all.

"You don't like Captain Jack much, do you?" She was settled in an old wheelchair shoved into the storage room they now hid in, rocking it back and forth with her feet, twirling strands of her hair between her fingers. She was bored, despite the truly magnificent music on the radio, and watching him poke about the bars at the window of their makeshift prison with his sonic screwdriver.

"Why should I not like him? I've only just met him."

"You are such a horrible liar," she snorted, the chair creaking slightly as she gave it an extra bit of a shove.

"Now look who is hurling insults," he mocked, barely turning to look at her.

"You are the one judging a man you say you've just met."

"Now don't go putting words into my mouth." He fiddled with settings to resonate the Victorian era concrete and wondering why in the world he was doing this. It would take weeks, perhaps even months, to find the right resonance frequency, but Rose didn't need to know that. It would only add to her growing sense of his own dislike of a man who he had no business disliking. After all, he didn't know anything more about this Jack Harkness then he was a con artist, a former Time Agent, and he was morally corrupt. Why would any of that mean he would think less of the man?

"Why don't you like him?"

"Why do you trust him," he shot back, glaring over his shoulder at her.

That gave her pause. She shrugged, considering for a long moment, halting the rocking of her ancient chair. "I don't know. He hasn't given me much reason not to."

"Very generous of you," he snorted, turning back to the window.

"You just assumed he was bad right off the bat, as if that is any better!"

The Doctor resisted the urge to curse, loudly. Really, Rose could be impossibly Pollyanna about the universe when she wanted to be and it was at times like this he found it insufferable. "He's a Time Agent."

"So?" The words had no meaning to a girl who witnessed time travel with him everyday. He sighed, twitching at buttons on his screwdriver before explaining.

"The Time Agency is formed in the 49th century by a bunch of humans who figured out how to jump through time. They thought they would have the brilliant idea of trying to make the universe better and stop those who threatened humanity. Noble idea, of course, and like most human, noble ideas, it was flawed."

"Flawed how?"

He paused in his poking around the concrete of the window to turn to her, leaning back against the cold, damp wall. "Humans, even at their most brilliant, and they can be brilliant, can only perceive time one way. Oh, they can conceive of time in different ways, it's why you lot love your time travel stories, and your alternate universe stories, and stories about different dimensions. But time doesn't work in a straight line, nor does it work in strings. It doesn't work from one point to the other. It's more liquid than that, more fine, like a spider's web made water, delicate and gossamer, with zillions of possibilities, more than anyone could imagine."

"Is that how you see it, then? Like this...spider web...thing?"

"No," he cocked his head, trying to explain, and finding that English had no analogies for what time was. "Time is like liquid crystals, like golden, fiery rivers that spill into each other in these weird, Escher like ways. It's just…too hard to explain."

"Why? Because I'm human?" Her eyes flashed in the dim light. Humans were always so touchy about things like this.

"Yes," he shot back with a smirk. "That was the Time Agency's problem too. They were human. They tried, bless them, to make supercomputers that could calculate all possible outcomes. But you see, that's the problem with computers, they are only as good as the people who program them in, and in the end they only botched the whole thing up and made a mess of it all."

Rose gave him the long suffering look that said she was trying hard not to be offended. "Right, so okay, Time Agency, not the greatest idea in the world. But why does that make Jack a bad guy?"

"'Cause he's a Time Agent," the Doctor shrugged simply.

He could see Rose quietly counting to five to herself before continuing. "Yeah, but that doesn't explain to me why he would be bad."

"The idea of the Time Agency is to stop things that threaten humanity. To change history." He nodded at her pointedly. "You and I both know what happens when you do something like that."

Rose swallowed hard, nodding her head silently.

"Yeah, well they never got it through their thick heads," the Doctor muttered darkly. "Their entire idea was to change history without being seen. To leave a mark, but go unnoticed. They liked to pretend they didn't exist."

"Sort of like the Men in Black then?" Rose couldn't even say that term without snickering a little.

"Don't mock, there are Men in Black, and yeah, that's the idea. Except the Time Agency was idiotically bad at it. They didn't care who they hurt or what they had to do to manipulate things to what they wanted. And they didn't stick around for any of the consequences."

"So, what you are saying is that, based on previous experience with a broad group of people from a few centuries in the future, you can tell that this man you just met is a horrible person, obviously completely untrustworthy, and will do nothing to help us?"

"Pretty much," he nodded, pushing off the wall as he turned back to the window.

"Right," she drawled, returning to the squeaky rolling of the chair. She was silent for a long moment, while he returned to fiddling with settings and poking at the bars. "Where you all any better at it?"

He frowned, trying to make sense of her sudden non-sequitur. "Who was any better at what?"

"Time Lords," she asked softly. "Where your lot any better at mucking about in time than the Time Agents?"

"Yes," he said, not bothering to look back at her. "We were born to it."

Rose made no further reply, listening instead to Glenn Miller on the radio, her rubber soles squelching against the tiles. The Doctor returned to his concrete resonating, which was going nowhere, and promised himself that next time he'd put a leash on her so she wouldn't pick up any other strays.


	29. Whatever Is Impossible

They danced for what felt like hours, till they fell gasping and laughing, Rose and Jack's eyes shining. It was a beautiful sight. For once, everyone got to live, Nancy and her son, Doctor Constantine, the soldiers on patrol, the ward nurses, the patients, everyone! They all got to live, history was maintained and the Doctor, Rose Tyler, and even Jack Harkness got to ride off into the sunset. It was glorious.

He needed more days like these.

"So your ship," Jack marveled, laying on the grating and staring up into the coral struts above. "This isn't anything I've ever seen before."

"Nope," the Doctor replied, unable to hide his pride in his old girl.

"And it's not a Time Agency ship," Jack murmured, glancing sideways at the Doctor sitting by Rose on the jump seat. She was breathless, smirking almost as much as he was, her tongue peeking at the corner of her broad smile.

"Nope," the Doctor shook his head.

"Then what is it?"

"Come on, Jack m'boy! Don't they teach you anything in that Time Agency?"

He could see the challenge in the other man's bright, blue eyes, the prick to his rather oversized ego. "So you're a time and space traveler?"

"Yep!" He crossed his arms expectantly, seeing if the other man would figure it out.

"But you aren't with the agency." Jack raised his head enough to glance at the glowing column in the middle of the console. "And this technology is way to advanced for them anyway."

"It better be," the Doctor barked, feeling somewhat nettled at the idea of the Time Agency having anything compared to his people. "She's old, but she's amazing, I'll tell you that Jack Harkness."

"She's not anything like I've ever seen before in my life," he breathed, turning his head to glance at Rose and the Doctor. "But you two are."

"I'm boring," Rose piped up, jerking a thumb at the Doctor's shoulder. "He's not."

"Don't ruin it, Rose! I like to see what the old boy's got."

A slow, sly grin crept across Jack's face. "You aren't human?"

"Nope!" The Doctor waved with a manic grin. "Hello!"

"You look human."

"I could say humans look like my people too, but it's all a matter of semantics. My people came first."

"So your race is older than humans." Jack filed that away, pushing himself up to sit, cross legged on the floor. "You look like a human, sound like a human, you travel in space and time, and you have a ship that is bigger on the inside than the outside."

The Doctor had a feeling that Jack was far smarter than he let himself out to be even if he did foul up that Chula ambulance business. He was cunning and clever, enough so he could get out of the Time Agency even after a memory wipe. The Time Agency didn't exactly let anyone just walk out the door. And he had a feeling that Jack Harkness was bright enough to figure this puzzle out.

It took the other man about thirty seconds.

"That's not possible!" Jack's eyes were as wide as saucers in his handsome face.

"So he figured it out," Rose muttered irritably, frowning up at the Doctor. "You had to tell me."

"Not exactly like anyone in your time knew what I was."

"Good point."

Jack ignored them both, shaking his dark head. "You're a Time Lord?"

The Doctor nodded slowly.

The other man spluttered. "But...you're just myths. They told us that you all were stories they told pleb recruits to scare them into behaving themselves."

"Why would they use Time Lords as a method of hazing?" The Doctor felt truly affronted by the notion. "I'm a perfectly pleasant person."

"Well, when you aren't being a rude arse," Rose murmured beside him, earning an elbow from the Doctor. Not that she was the least bit repentant. she simply laughed at him.

" _Oi,_ remember that bike again," he growled, disgruntled.

"Yeah, how did you manage that?"

"Like I would tell you now after insulting me."

Jack merely stared at them both as if they were mad as he tried to wrap his brain around this revelation. "You're a Time Lord," he repeated, more firmly and somewhat disbelieving now.

"Is there an echo in here," the Doctor quipped, perhaps enjoying Jack's discomfort, awe, and amazement just a little too much. "I said I was. Want to cop a feel? Check out the two hearts?"

That perked Jack's interest just a bit. "Well, if you are offering…"

The Doctor wasn't, but at least had brought Jack back to the point. "In your time, or at least how you understand the universe, I am a myth. My people don't exist anymore, Jack." He uttered it so matter-of-factually now, as if he were discussing the weather or what they were planning on eating for tea. "I am the only one. I'm all that's left."

Silence met his quiet admission. Jack blinked at him, both in shock and sympathy, as he regarding the man he had thought little more than a legend a moment ago. The Doctor sighed, wishing vaguely he hadn't said anything, had let things lie. But beside him, a little hand reached for his, slipping into it quietly and without much fuss or fanfare, squeezing his fingers tightly with reassurance. He turned to glance at Rose, who simply smiled, leaning her head against his shoulder in silent support, reminding him that he wasn't quite as alone as he thought he was.

"So," Jack finally rumbled, a casual gravity to his words. "A Time Lord. You don't mind an ex-Time Agent on your frankly fabulous ship?"

The Doctor considered for a long moment, before breaking the mood with a mildly disgusted snort. "Jack Harkness, are you trying to butter me up with compliments on my ship just so I won't kick you off at the next planet we happen on?"

"Well, whatever works. Though if you have another method of persuasion I could employ?"

Rose burst into laughter at this, the sound of it ringing off the corals around them. Jack's sapphire eyes gleamed wickedly as he met the Doctor's disapproving smirk.

"What is with you all assuming that I don't...never mind." The Doctor sighed, shoving Rose slightly as she snickered beside him, standing as he moved towards the console. "Welcome on board, Captain Harkness. Few rules; do as I say, no running off, and no shagging of any beings, human or otherwise, on my ship, please. I don't want to have to fix whatever interplanetary conflicts that you may start with it."

"Okay, that only happened once...three times," Jack protested from where he sat on the grating, smiling winningly at the Doctor's warning glare. "And I promise, no...whatever on your ship. I get to stay?"

"Why not? Keep Rose company. She likes her pretty boys."

Rose's humor faded immediately, her expression indignant. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The Doctor cooly arched an eyebrow and politely did not mention Mickey or Adam to her. "Just make sure this one doesn't put a data spike in his skull, will you?"

Before Rose could snap back a reply Jack was off the floor, eagerly taking the seat the Doctor just vacated next to Rose, grinning like a schoolboy in a sweets shop. "So, traveling in a time and space machine that doesn't make your guts twist whenever you move. Where should we go then, Rosie?"

Her anger cooled by Jack's enthusiasm, she grinned, considering. "Oh, I don't know. Someplace fantastic. What do you think for Jack's first time, Doctor? What's that planet you were telling me about, where everything froze in place?"

"Woman Wept." He was already punching in the coordinates into the TARDIS. He had planned on taking Rose there by himself. He had wanted to see her wonder at it, to glory in the beauty of watching it through her eyes. But, he supposed, he didn't need to be selfish. He could bring Jack along, watch the two of them together enjoying it. The two, young, attractive humans enjoying one of the wonders of the universe, while he stood by and watched over them. It wouldn't bother him, after all. Certainly, he wouldn't feel regret at allowing the handsome, dashing captain on board. Why should he?

"You two better stop your giggling like schoolgirls. Go find some cold weather gear in the Wardrobe." He jerked his head towards the hallway, shooting Rose a pointed look. "Make sure your Captain has warm enough gear on, yeah."

"Right," she shot back, standing and pulling Jack along with her. "Come on! You haven't seen the rest of the ship and the Wardrobe is amazing!"

The Doctor listened to their laughter as she dragged the captain down the hall, ignoring the dull ache in his chest and vague regret he felt at allowing Jack Harkness anywhere on his ship.


	30. A Rift In Things

"You eat it!" Jack eyed the wiggling, cerulean blue creature on his plate with mild horror, holding his fork up as if it were a weapon.

"Jack, it's a local delicacy," Rose muttered, glancing nervously at the creature, as if she too were afraid it might attack her rather than nourish her.

"Not to mention that not eating it would offend the chieftain, who is staring at us right now," the Doctor pointed out mildly, fingers searching in his pocket for his sonic screwdriver. He had a feeling he'd need it in a minute or two.

"Who's bright idea was it to tell them that I was a god," Jack snapped back, one eye hotly glaring at the Doctor, the other on the creature before him. It was starting to squeal in a most unnerving way.

"You were the one who came out, all smiles and charm, and played along with it!" The Doctor gave the rumbling leaders of the tribe the widest, brightest smile he could. They didn't seem to be swayed. Bulbous, amber eyes blinked in dissatisfaction out of green faces, their frog like features scowling in clear dissatisfaction that their honored guest was not eating the hard hunted and rare delicacy they had presented to him. Of course, no one had bothered to warn either Jack, Rose, or the Doctor that the creature was a slimy, slippery, being that bore a strong resemblance to a fluke worm and was was a shade of cobalt blue that the Doctor didn't think would be healthy to ingest. Oh yes, and the fact that it was two feet long and alive likely didn't help matters.

"Doctor, I think it's looking at me," Rose whimpered, edging near him.

"It's all right, won't be looking at you once you swallow it."

"Because that thought makes it all the better," she whispered, looking slightly green around the gills.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, Doc, how bad would you think they take it if we just, you know, cut and run and didn't pay the check?"

The Doctor glanced at the growing insult on the amphibian faces and quickly made a judgment call. "I'd say a 15, so I am voting we leg it as fast as we can."

"Agreed," Jack concurred, slapping on his most ingratiating smile. "Lords, ladies, thank you so much for offering me such a lovely meal! But you see, I had this amazing dinner before we even got here. Pasta! So filling! And you see, I just don't think I could eat another bite!"

"That's the spirit, Jack, you divert, we'll run," the Doctor slapped the other man on the shoulder, grabbed Rose's hand. As the outraged cries began to surface he drug her along behind him, making his way as quickly as he could out of the bamboo-like great hall, and out past the guards, through the night along the rickety, creaking bridges.

Rose shrieked with laughter as they ran through fog and vines, pell mell to the spot where the TARDIS waited, wreathed in mist and shadow. Without stopping so much as a step, he drug out his key, slamming into the front of his ship as he jammed it in the lock, throwing the door open wide. Rose stumbled behind him, gasping and giggling, as they turned, watching for Jack to appear somewhere behind him.

They didn't have long to wait. His heavy, booted footsteps followed, along with the shouts and cries of angry villagers as he hoofed it down the same, wooden planks, not stopping until he nearly slammed into the console in his full-tilt run. Not far behind, angry shouts and the clash of stone against wood followed, and the TARDIS quickly shut her doors, the rotor grinding into life as outside protests rang loud and clear into the night.

"Well, that could have gone better." Jack gasped, holding his side, his white teeth shining in his sweaty face.

"You should have seen your expression when they brought that out to you!" Rose nearly doubled over from both the exertion of running and the laughter pealing through the room. "You looked as if you were going to faint!"

"You weren't much better," Jack shot back, pointing at her as she collapsed on the jump seat. "I thought you would puke all over it."

"And neither of you handled it well," the Doctor calmly and cheerfully added, leaning against the console and eyeing them both with superiority. "Do you know how hard that was to catch? Could have fed their village for a week, I surmise."

"Then they could have had it," Rose retorted breathlessly.

"I didn't see you tabling up there, Doctor," Jack observed, rubbing at the stitch in his side.

"Don't do flukeworm. Tends to cause a rash."

"Right!" They both snickered in unison. The Doctor ignored them as he turned towards the console, checking out the readings on his monitor. Even before this trip he'd noticed the TARDIS fuel cells running a bit low. Not a problem. Normally, they tended to re-up themselves any time he was in the Vortex for any length of time. But since bringing Jack on board the ship months before they had been in a constant tear through the universe to places past and future, both on Earth and elsewhere. Consequently, the lack of rest had drained his venerable time ship.

"Where to next?" Rose's breath was back as her voice rang with the joy of adventure. He knew she would be annoyed if he told her they were going to hang about the Vortex for a week to allow the TARDIS to fuel up, so used were both she and Jack now to running like mad for their lives. Still, they'd not get very far with the old girl in this shape.

"We have to refuel first," he replied, considering options. "Normally I'd take her into the Vortex for a while, but could take a week or two if we did that."

"A week!" Rose practically wailed, a full pout setting in.

Jack, never having been in the Vortex longer than it took to move between point A and B frowned between the pair of them. "What's wrong with that?"

"We'll be stuck in between, doing nothing, till the TARDIS fills up," she grumbled.

The Doctor rolled his eyes at her dramatics. "It's not as bad as all that. But there are other ways of powering up. Maybe find another source of artron energy, sit on it for a bit, that would speed up the process."

"Artron energy? That's the stuff of time, the energy produced by the flow of it." Jack glanced at the Time Rotor with a thoughtful, appreciative smile. "You are such a sexy thing, you."

"Stop trying to seduce my ship, Harkness," the Doctor muttered, though not heatedly. Frankly, it pleased him just a bit to know Jack thought his ship to be sexy. "But yeah, she runs on the stuff of time."

"Couldn't you just find a hot spot in time somewhere? A wrinkle or a gap?"

Not that the Doctor would tell him so, but it was moments like this that he was glad for Jack's Time Agency background. He could speak the lingo, understand the finer points of time and quantum physics, and from time to time even had a great idea. "It would work if I could find such a place. Not like temporal rifts are common out there in the great wide universe."

"True," Jack acknowledged thoughtfully. "I mean, I used to know where some of the more convenient ones were. Helped in using the Vortex Manipulators, sort of like a boost of energy to get you where you needed to go. But after my unfortunate parting with the Agency I have a feeling that me showing my face around any of those anytime soon wouldn't go over well."

"Ahh, and it's such a handsome one, too." The Doctor cooed, earning a wicked grin out of the other man.

"That it is. Also makes it a damn good target."

"Wouldn't want that now, would we?"

"I know of a rift...thingy." Rose suddenly broke in, ignoring the interchange between the two. They paused, turning to stare at her in mild surprise. A hint of irritation crossed her pretty face before she fixed the Doctor with a glare. "You know where it is too."

It took him a long second to figure it out. "Cardiff!"

"Cardiff?" Jack shook his head, the name unfamiliar to him. "Never heard of it. What planet is that?"

"It's not a planet," Rose laughed.

"It should be it's own," the Doctor muttered, earning a dark look from Rose.

"It's a city, on Earth, in Wales, part of Great Britain."

"I know what Wales is," Jack shot back, somewhat nettled. "I was in the RAF during the War, remember."

"As an American, so you can pardon Rose for assuming that you don't know where Wales is. Most Americans are dodgy on where Great Britain is." The Doctor had never known a race so geographically challenged as human could be at times. 

Jack nodded, not disputing this, even if he was neither technically American nor from Earth. "So Cardiff, Wales, not so bad."

"Well, as long as there aren't Gelth trying to get through, yeah." Rose replied, a hint of sadness and worry flickering to life. "If you are on it, they can't get through the rift, can they, Doctor?"

"No," he assured her, recalling that long ago adventure, he and Rose caught in a basement morgue, holding hands together as the Gelth in their stolen bodies threatened to kill them. It had been Rose who had been against the idea and he hadn't listened to her then. And it was the bravery of a poor girl named Gwyneth who had saved them all from the Doctor's guilt-ridden blindness.

"Gwyneth sealed that when she died," he sighed, regret at her death still aching now months after the fact. "But that doesn't mean that there isn't a sort of scar there now. It's sealed over, but the energy from it all remains."

"So you could use that to fill up the TARDIS fuel cells." Jack offered, pleased at a solution that wouldn't strand them for a week or better. "We could park the TARDIS, go check out Cardiff, maybe a bar, someplace to eat that isn't serving flukeworm."

"We could go to Cardiff in my time." Rose chimed in, already looking more pleased with this idea. "Nice restaurants there, good social scene. And maybe I could give Mickey or Mum a call, have them meet up with us."

"Yeah, cause that sounds exciting," the Doctor muttered darkly. He ignored Rose's glare, but felt himself giving in anyway. "Sure, why not. Give us some time to let the old girl charge up, and you can go play at your domestics for a bit."

"Brilliant!" Rose crowed, popping up from the jump seat with a bounce. "I'll give them a call, see which of them is free to come out. You'll love them, Jack, and I'm sure they would love you!"

She raced off, trainers flying down the hall to her room, leaving Jack to watch her in bemusement and the Doctor to sigh in tired resignation.

"So, who is Mickey again?" Jack had of course heard of Rose's stories, but had yet to meet either.

"Rose's boyfriend," the Doctor replied firmly. At least he assumed that Mickey was still Rose's boyfriend. It had been months of relative time for Rose since she had last seen her mother and Mickey in London, and though he knew she called Jackie frequently, Mickey had been relegated to the occasional text message and photograph from some far away planet. Save for the one time she saw him as a child in 1987, Rose had showed little interest in keeping up her very long distance relationship.

"How do you think that he is taking it, his girlfriend running through all of time and space with the likes of you?"

"Don't know and don't care. Don't do the domestics." The Doctor replied moodily. "Rose is a grown girl and does what she wants with who she wants. Not my problem."

Jack shot him a dubious look, a knowing glint in his eyes that made the Doctor extremely uncomfortable. "Right."

"Anyway, Cardiff, early 21st century. Fun, touristy, I think you will like it, Jack."

"Show me a bar and a pack of handsome people and I'm sure I will love it."

"I figured you just might." The Doctor grinned, as the Time Rotor wheezed into life.


	31. The Fine Art of Dancing

As the TARDIS charged, the Doctor got a jump start on some of the repairs it needed, and he decided to recruit Jack Harkness in on the work. Much to the Doctor's surprise it turned out that the good captain was quite handy with a spanner and a set of pliers and knew more than the Doctor would have expected about a time and space machine.

"Where'd you pick up your skills?" He lay on his back under the console, up to his arms in wires and bits. Just on the edge of his vision he could see Jack fiddling with a regulator that helped the TARDIS fine tune its selection in space and time wherever it went.

"Here and there, mostly." He shrugged, nimble fingers working carefully. "Picked up a few things when I was a kid, then when I went to work for the Time Agency."

"Things like how to work on a Time Lord spaceship?" The Doctor couldn't help the hint of skeptical surprise at that.

"Well, despite what you say about superior Time Lord technology and everything, a ship is just a ship when you get to the nuts and bolts of it." He tossed the regulator in the air, catching it with a cocky grin. "And besides, I was the one who outfitted a Chula warship for my use single handedly."

"Impressive," the Doctor admitted, grudgingly. "And just who is Jack Harkness when he is at home?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Jack's white teeth flashed flirtatiously, giving the Doctor a wink.

The Doctor snorted, returning to his fiddling. He had given up on learning anything substantive on Jack Harkness ages ago. He hadn't told the man, but he knew that most of his story was a web of lies, at least his name was. But Jack was a time traveler, following the thread of his timeline was like trying to trace a needle in a haystack, and he'd given up on it nearly as soon as he had tried. Still, he liked trying to pick out the bits of the real Jack underneath it all. He had a feeling that the human had a lot more good about him than he liked letting on, a fact the Doctor couldn't help but find intriguing about him.

"Is there a species out there you won't flirt with, Jack?"

"Probably a few. But then again, I've yet to meet them."

The Doctor considered a Dalek for a moment, but wisely kept his mouth shut.

"How about you, Doc?" Jack returned to the regulator with an air of too casual indifference. "A Time Lord, all of time and space at his fingers, millions of races. Can't tell me there isn't a story or two out there."

"None that I'd tell you." The Doctor hissed as he crossed two wires together that he shouldn't, causing a spark that singed his fingers.

"What? No kissing and telling? What fun is that." Jack protested mildly, though he knew he'd get nothing for it. "How old are you now?"

"Nine hundred years, give or take." The Doctor sucked on his fingertip and wishing he hadn't the minute he tasted solder and metal.

"And in all of that time, you haven't…" Jack paused suggestively, causing the Doctor to cock his head out from under the console to glare at the other man's wiggling eyebrows.

"What?"

"You know." Jack leered at him in that charming way only Jack seemed to have.

The Doctor huffed, groaning at the other man. "Honestly, you humans, is that all that you ever think about is...that?"

"Well, any healthy, adult, human male, yeah." Jack hardly seemed offended or displeased by the idea. "What? Time Lords don't ever, you know, feel randy?"

How in the hell did this conversation devolve into this, the Doctor wondered, before realizing that he was talking to Jack. Every conversation devolved into sex for him.

"Time Lords know the fine art of...dancing as well as anyone." He pushed himself out from under the console irritably, ignoring Jack's laughter at his expense.

"You can't even say it, can you?"

"Say what," the Doctor snapped.

"Sex," Jack replied, cheekily, grinning up at him. "You know! Sex, shag, boink, diddle, romp, hump, get your groove on, making the beast with two backs, making love, fu…"

"I get the picture!" The Doctor cut him off waspishly, busying himself with his monitor and ignoring the gleeful delight the other man was getting out of taking the mickey out of him.

"It's perfectly natural, Doctor. Nothing to be ashamed of."

"Natural for humans," he replied, glaring at his readouts as if they held a grudge against him. "Bad enough, Rose with her pretty boys, now you too. Humans and your hormones."

"What? Time Lords don't like doing it?"

The Doctor was rapidly wishing he hadn't wrangled Jack into this business. "What do you know about Time Lords, Jack?"

The other man shrugged lightly. "Oh, you know, mostly rumors I guess, seeing that it was the Time Agency. They said that Time Lords were these all powerful, hyper-intelligent beings who lived a long time." He cocked his head, regarding the Doctor thoughtfully. "You said nine-hundred years, right?"

"Yeah," the Doctor replied grimly. "That's young for a Time Lord. I've led something of an adventurous life."

"So how long do Time Lords live for?" Jack was truly curious now, perhaps for the first time realizing just how truly alien the Doctor was.

"Oh, I don't know," he admitted carefully, thinking back to some of the venerable old sages he knew from his childhood. "They said that Rassilon lived for ten-thousand-years the first time, but I knew a few of the old ones who were a few thousand."

Jack whistled low, shaking his dark head ruefully. "Creatures who live that long. I don't think I could stand it. I don't know how you do."

"Different when that's what you're genetically born to do," the Doctor surmised. "Remember, we see time differently than humans, we feel the flow of it. We aren't bound by the linear limitations of humanity, that straight line focus that begins when we are born and ends when we die. Consequently, we don't have the same impulses you do."

"Impulses? You mean the need to shag your brains out?"

The Doctor ignored Jack's filthy grin. "The need to procreate and populate, to continue the species. When you live for centuries, Jack, you don't feel the need to keep making more of you."

"But you still feel the need, right? Every so often?"

"Sure," the Doctor replied. "Gallifreyans did what other species do. We procreate just like everyone else. There were children." His voice caught at that, memories of screaming boys and girls, clinging to mothers and fathers, as Daleks rampaged through the streets, with nowhere to turn to, nowhere to run. A couple of million of them, condemned to hell by his hand.

"And now there is only one," Jack said softly, as if sensing the private grief and anguish of the Doctor in that moment. "Just one of you alive in the entire universe."

"Yeah," the Doctor murmured, his voice rough and ragged. He cleared his throat, blinking his eyes hard against the stinging, cutting his eyes tiredly towards Jack. "There's only me."

For what it was worth, Jack respected his grief enough not to whip out his flippant charm. He shrugged his shoulders in his tight fitting t-shirt, glancing at the hallway beyond the console. "So, Rose? You ever tell her about...well, the whole living for thousands of years thing?"

"I didn't say thousands. And no, I've not mentioned it.

"But she knows how old you are, right?"

"Yeah," he replied, wondering what Jack was getting at.

"How about the regeneration thing?"

That caught the Doctor's attention. His head whipped up to see Jack's triumphant face. "How did you…"

"A bit of Time Agency lore. I heard it but never believed it. You seriously can do that? Regenerate if you die?"

"Yeah," the Doctor affirmed reluctantly. "And don't you go telling Rose about it either."

That surprised the other man. "Why not?"

"Cause!" He scrambled for a good reason, not that there ever was one. He chose to go with honesty, because frankly it was about as reasonable as a lie at this point. "Because living centuries is alien enough, yeah? Because telling her I change when I die would be just too…"

"Weird?" Jack offered.

"Hard to understand," the Doctor corrected. "Regeneration isn't just a case of me going to sleep and being all better. I'm a different person, different face, different personality."

"Same Doctor, right?" The idea didn't seem to bother Jack. But then this was a man who had no problem making love to someone without a mouth.

"Same me. Same memories, same experiences, same feelings…"

"Even about Rose?"

The Doctor wasn't sure he liked the keen, knowing look in the other man's eye. "Course. Why not? Rose is brilliant."

"I was just thinking, maybe you didn't tell her because you were afraid that she'd not want to be with you."

"That's up to Rose to decide. Anyway, not like I'm planning on dying anytime soon."

"But it could happen," Jack insisted blithely. "Right?"

"In theory," the Doctor admitted vaguely. "Why in the world does it matter?"

Jack's piercing eyes steadied on him, uncharacteristically serious. "Because, Doctor, you and I both know this isn't exactly the safest life you lead. And I may just be a horny lothario to you, but I know a thing or two about matters of the heart. And I just don't want to see Rose hurt, that's all. Or you, for that matter."

The Doctor felt his jaw clench at the other man's well meaning words. How could he possibly know a thing about what he was talking about. "It's not like that, Jack. Me and Rose are mates."

"Yeah, think on that term a little bit, why don't you." Jack set down the piece he had been working on, pushing himself up off the grating, dusting off his trousers. "And if I were you, Doctor, I would try to overcome that biological damper of yours and shag the living daylights out of her before Mickey sweeps her off to do it."

Jack's suggestion was so stunning that for once in his life the Doctor didn't even have a response. He merely stared at Jack as if he were mad. Frankly, the Doctor wasn't completely sure he wasn't.

"And hell, if you don't shag her, I'm open, 'cause frankly, Doctor, if there is one person in this universe who needs to get laid, it's you." He winked cheekily at him as he turned towards the hallway beyond. "I'm going to see what's taking our girl so long, okay. Probably painting her nails or some other girly thing like that."

The Doctor simply watched Jack wander off in silence, finding himself utterly at a loss.


	32. A Do Over

He found Rose sitting up, watching over the wiggling egg, humming softly to it in the warm glow of the heat lamp he had placed near it. As she sang, the tentacles twitched and waved, gently undulating, a disturbing, if somewhat cute sight. Perhaps the tiny Blon inside was happy again.

"I think she likes your voice," the Doctor smiled down at the sight, Rose sitting on the floor next to the soft blanket that cradled the egg. He passed her a mug of tea, settling next to her to watch the egg as it stilled.

"Yeah, who thought a Slitheen would like the sound of some human singing?" Rose chuckled, wrapping her hands around the cup, watching the egg in bemusement. "Though I guess if she's an egg, she wouldn't be a Slitheen anymore, yeah?"

"Nope." The Doctor studied the now quiescent egg in front of him. "She'll be someone different, something different. Perhaps she will be a teacher, or a stateswoman, or a healer. The possibilities are endless."

"Good for her," Rose murmured, sipping from her mug. "Maybe she will do things better this time. Different."

He glanced sideways at her. Of course he had noticed Rose's demeanor coming back from chasing down Mickey. He had been quietly pleased she had returned, perhaps a bit smug even. One less tie to hold her down, own less domestic issue for him to deal with. And in all fairness, he had thought it was a tad unfair on her part to string Mickey along the way she had. After all, Mickey cared about her, but Rose couldn't seem to be bothered with the boy. All was well that ended well, right? Except for the glum expression on Rose's face as she watched the sleeping egg with Blon inside. That didn't set well with the Doctor at all.

"I take it things with you and Mickey went pear shaped?" He may as well take on the bull by the horns.

Rose's response was to laugh sadly, rubbing her forehead with her fingers. "You could say that."

"He didn't want to come with? I would have had him?"

"No," she replied quickly. "We...never got to that, really."

"I think he would have liked it, once he got used to it," the Doctor mused, remembering the previous offer he had made to Mickey.

"Yeah, well he's too busy shagging Tricia Delaney to bother with things like that," she snapped, her jaw setting as she glowered at nothing in particular. "He's busy living his normal, regular, everyday life with someone who doesn't run off to the stars and leave him behind."

Ahh, and there was the rub. The Doctor sighed, rubbing his face, his dislike of petty domestics warring with the fact that it was Rose he was talking to. The girl who for months now had been by his side, who he had come to care for far more than he liked to admit. The callous part of his soul wanted to tell her that it was all for the best and to distract her with pretty baubles on fantastic planets, to remind her that this was all worth it, this life he led. But the guilty part of him considered Jack's words about Rose and her heart.

"You regret it?" The question burst out of him, half in concern, half in fear of what her answer might be.

Rose shrugged, shoulders hunching as she leaned against her knees, setting her mug down between her crossed legs. "Sometimes, yeah. I mean, I don't regret you or our traveling or anything."

The Doctor tried to pretend he wasn't relieved to hear that.

"But you know, I regret this...between me and him. I regret how this all went." She rubbed her hands up her bare arms, sleeveless in her pajamas. "I mean, Mickey and me, we've known each other since we were kids. You saw, with my Dad. It was always the two of us, even when I ran off with that Jimmy Stone, great git. Mickey was the one who came and got me, brought me back to Mum. He's always been there, he's always been safe, he's been…"

"A great friend," the Doctor supplied. Rose's gaze flickered to him, somewhat ashamed.

"Yeah," she sighed. It didn't make her happy. "He was always a great mate, the best. But, I don't know, he was safe, comfortable, that one person I always knew would be there when the world fell apart. And then...well he wasn't."

The Doctor had never been great with relationships, especially not his own. It wasn't particularly a Time Lord or even a Gallifreyan trait, this rubbishness, it was simply a him thing. Mad, broken, wandering old man that he was, he never could seem to get it right. He felt clumsy in these affairs, and now was no exception.

"Not to be rude, Rose, though it's me and I expect that it will be, but if you want my humble opinion you aren't in love with Mickey. And you never really were."

Rather than earn her offense, it simply only made her laugh again, rolling her eyes at him. "What was your first clue, there?"

"I don't know. Maybe the fact that after preaching to me about having no feelings when you thought he died, you were the one who ran off on him and jumped on board an alien ship, never looking back."

"It's not like I didn't care about him," she protested tightly.

"Well, but you didn't do much to make up for the fact he carried a murder suspicion on him for a year."

"Whose fault was that," she retorted, now becoming angry. "You were the one who couldn't drive and ended us up twelve months from where we were supposed to be."

"I'm not saying it was your fault. I am saying you could have done more to make him feel better."

"Like what," she challenged in annoyance.

That was the part where she had him stumped. He floundered, reaching for anything. "You could have called him more, I guess."

"Called him?"

"Yeah. Talk to him three and four times a day like you do your Mum."

"Right," she muttered, shaking her head. "'Cause that would have fixed everything."

"I don't know," he snapped, glowering at her, realizing this was all more than out of his league. "You were the one who ran out on him."

"You saying I shouldn't have?"

"No," he countered, wondering how this conversation was getting so rapidly out of hand. "I wanted you here. I wouldn't have come back for you if I didn't."

"But you think I wasn't fair to Mickey?"

"Well, where you?"

She remained angrily silent for long moments before finally shaking her head with a tearful, "No."

Relationships were messy things. It was part of why he was so bad at them. Still, he hated seeing this pink and yellow human cry. Awkwardly, he wrapped an arm around her shaking shoulders, squeezing them in a half-hug. "Mickey's a good bloke, no doubt about it. And he cares about you a lot. But he deserves better than a passing hello and a quicky in a cheap hotel."

Rose snorted and spluttered a bit, torn between laughing and screeching in horrified alarm. "A quickie in what...we never…"

"You're human, Rose, and so is he. He's a male. Nothing wrong with it."

"It's just...it's not...well, okay, we thought about it. But when I found out about Trisha, just didn't seem right."

"Because he was dating someone else or because you didn't want to lead him on?"

"Both," she admitted, scrubbing at her face with the heels of her hands. "I just don't feel for Mickey what he wants me to feel. I don't want to lead the life he wants to lead. He wants to just get married, settle down, have babies. And I'm not opposed to those things, one day, but this...this life, with you, that's what I want."

She turned glowing, whiskey-cinnamon eyes up to him and the Doctor found his mouth going really rather dry, his hearts both stuttering in their rhythmic pace. He thought he could hear Jack laughing at him somewhere as this human stared up at him, a shop girl from the estates who had blundered into his broken, decimated, lonely existence and had given him something he hadn't had since the loss of Gallifrey...someone to care for.

But there was one hitch in all of this, and she had said it herself.

"But you will want those things one day, Rose." He pointed out, softly, his voice aching as he said it. "The marrying, and the settling down, and the babies, and the normal, very human things that everyone wants."

"Maybe," she hedged. "I don't know. Hard to say what I will want in a few years."

"But you might," he pointed out candidly. "And I can't keep you from that if it's what you want."

"It's not what I want now," she replied firmly, a hand coming to pat his knee. "And I may never want it. For now, this, you, this is what I want. And I'm going to stick it out for as long as I can."

Jack's words came to haunt him, and he wondered what exactly the other man saw that the Doctor was missing out on. Now he had a feeling he knew what exactly it was. And he couldn't tell if this made him blissfully happy or frightened beyond all belief. "Rose, things may change."

"And if they do we'll deal with it. We always do." She spoke with the confidence of the young and naive. "I've already committed myself to this, Doctor. I've hurt Mickey, I can't go back and fix that. I've left my Mum. I'm in this to stay, for as long as you will have me."

He felt himself want to tell her he'd have her forever, but his practical, logical, Time Lord brain reminded him that was an impossibility. Not with her human lifespan. "Do you regret it at all, Rose? Running off with me. Not staying with Mickey? Cause I could fix it for you in a minute, take you back, give you that second chance, make things right with him?"

"And miss out on everything I've had with you?" Rose sounded horrified by the idea. "Never, Doctor. I just wish I hadn't hurt him is all. He deserves better than that."

"Yeah, he does." The Doctor admitted. He was a man who simultaneously ran from regret while living with it like an omnipresent shroud. He wished he could say something, anything to make her feel better. "All of us mess up, do things we wish we hadn't. Some of us do major things we wish we hadn't." Like destroying their worlds, he brooded darkly. "Trick is we have to figure out how to keep moving, despite it all. Learn from it. Hopefully we can do it better the next go around, do it right."

"Speaking from experience, are we?" She caught her tongue between her teeth, her eyes sparkling.

"Well, me, I'm perfect. No such regrets from me," he boasted, despite the hollow, mocking laughter in his own head. Rose knew, of course, and simply snickered, shaking her head and muttering something about his ego and thinking himself impressive.

"It's late," he pointed out, though they both knew that time was relative in the TARDIS. "You need a full sleep cycle and we need to get Blon here to a hatchery. And it's not easy sneaking into the hatcheries of Raxacoricofallapatorius.

"I can't believe we get to go," Rose laughed, pushing herself up, grabbing her tea from the floor. "I hope she ends up in a good family this time, ends up with a better life."

"Me too." He watched the egg sadly, reaching across to tuck a corner of the blanket around it. "I think all of us could use second chances once in a while."

"Right," Rose murmured, reaching down to pat him on the shoulder. "Off to bed. Wake me when we land. G'night, Doctor."

"Night, Rose," he called back, not even turning to look at her as she shuffled off. He silently watched Blon's egg, considering second chances and redemption and wondered if there was even such a thing for the likes of him, the Killer of Worlds.

"I hope you use your chance wisely," he whispered to the egg. He smiled softly as one of the tentacles waved mildly at him, as if in a sort of response.


	33. Sushi and Swordfights

All good things must come to an end.

The deposit of Blon on her home planet went off relatively smoothly, with no one noticing the added egg in the hatchery. They made it off the planet as quickly as they could, not wishing to press their luck, and ran off madly into the stars again. A side trip was made to a planet where even dreams were a crime, one that neither Rose nor Jack appreciated, before the TARDIS deposited them in the middle of the 23rd century in New Vegas to solve a bit of a mystery. Not that it wasn't fun playing at being cop, but he wasn't nearly as happy with Rose as a cocktail waitress with drunken old men getting handsy with her. Jack appreciated her uniform, however, much to the Doctor's chagrin, and he was relieved when they could return to the TARDIS and put Rose in clothing that made her look less naked. She laughed at his discomfort but clad herself in jeans and a hoodie, back to the comfortable, familiar Rose he was used to.

And they kept on running. Through planets and times, with misadventures galore. It was Jack who had suggested medieval Kyoto, Japan, because he had been fascinated as a boy with the stories of samurai from ancient Earth. Now given the chance to see it, the Doctor obliged him, setting the TARDIS down in the ancient Japanese capital, warning his two companions that this was feudal Japan, the height of their samurai culture, with their codes of honor, duty, and saving face, and please, don't go messing about and upsetting a local lord.

He shouldn't have wasted his breath. It was bound to happen sooner or later. At least, he reflected later, they had managed to make it through lunch. They had spent hours wandering through Kyoto's ancient streets, meeting the stares of the peasants who commented on the strange, tall foreigners, particularly Rose with her golden hair. Jack had managed to wander off, much to Rose's concern, though the Doctor assured her Jack was plenty able to take care of himself.

"This is Jack," she reminded him pointedly. "Knowing him he'll end up with some geisha or three and cause a commotion and then where will we be?"

"Jack can keep his head about him," the Doctor assured her without any real confidence. "So, how about something to eat? Sushi, maybe?"

Rose immediately wrinkled her nose. "Raw fish? I think I'd rather eat Mum's shepherd's pie."

"And so you have, Rose, and it hasn't killed you. I doubt that sushi will. Besides, this fish is fermented, it's not so bad."

She didn't look completely convinced as they wandered up to a street vendor. The Doctor ordered two types of fish, handing one order to Rose with a smile.

"Eat up, Rose, it's good for you."

"Shareen got food poisoning from sushi once."

"And if you do I have a remedy that will fix you right up. Now, do you want to be a coward and whinge about it?"

"Yes," she pouted before meeting his stern glare. "All right."

With a deep breath and opening her mouth wide, she picked up the piece of fish and put it in her mouth. Chewing quickly, her expression twisted in mild surprise and disgust.

"It's not...so bad," she conceded, swallowing the lump quickly. "But it's not my Mum's shepherd's pie."

"Right, 'cause it's actually food." The Doctor downed his own portion with some of the fermented rice it came with. "Delicious!"

"If you say so," she muttered, handing him the rest of hers. He gladly took it, munching on it thoughtfully as they wandered down the street together.

"This place is so beautiful," she murmured, spinning to stare at the low, wooden buildings and the graceful temples, the sound of chimes inside carrying on the breeze.

"Over there is the Imperial Palace, though they don't let anyone in there. Doesn't matter, the real power is the the growing Ashikaga shogunate. They have a fancy house not far from here on Muromachi Street. Beautiful place with flowers, trees, you'd love it. They'll be the real people in power for the next two centuries or so."

"Why not the emperor? I thought he was in charge."

"Not during this period," the Doctor clarified. "Shoguns are in power. They keep the local lords in line. In fact, the first Ashikaga shogun got so annoyed with the emperor he removed him and put the emperor's son in power."

"That must be convenient," Rose drawled.

"That's what it means to be in power. You get to make all the decisions, even the life and death ones. And an emperor is only as powerful as the people underneath him. No emperor in any civilization has ever been all powerful, no matter what they thought. All of them have been destroyed by something, usually their own arrogance and pride."

"And causing death and destruction in their wake," Rose muttered sadly, glancing around the lovely city, bustling with people. "It's like, you think about the history books and World War II. And all that death and destruction we saw in London, with Nancy, right? And we were the good guys, us and the Americans. And these people, their descendants, following their emperor, they are on the wrong side of that same war, and what happens when America gets the bomb. They blow cities like this one out of existence."

Trust Rose to find the humanity in people even in the middle of a war. "Power can corrupt if not used wisely. And it's the innocent who suffer for it." No one knew that lesson better than he did.

"It's just so sad, is all," she sighed, smiling in the sunlight, wrapping her arms around herself. "But we are here, it's a lovely day, and so far no one has tried to kill us. It's great, right?"

Footsteps pounding down wood paved streets in the distance hinted that Rose had perhaps spoken a tad too soon.

"Oh no," the Doctor muttered, as sure enough, Jack came running, pell mell, down a hill, rounding a corner, his jacket flying behind him.

"Jack," Rose cried in alarm, but she didn't get to say more as in one, smooth gesture he grabbed her arm at the elbow and pulled her with him, never even stopping.

"Doc, come on!" Jack screamed as the Doctor glanced in the direction his companion had come from. Sure enough, fully armored Japanese warriors were running in his direction, their beautiful, silver, deadly-edged swords raised in the sunlight.

The Doctor didn't need to be told twice.

His legs pumping, he followed Jack and Rose, slipping around the narrow corners and busy streets, back to the TARDIS where it sat next to a fish shop and an inn. People shouted and screamed as the three of them jostled their way past crowds of shoppers and vendors, all the while the cries of the soldiers behind threatened them as they rushed to the familiar, faded blue box on the corner.

Quick as a wink, Rose had her key in the lock and was letting them in, the Doctor slamming the door shut on the startled faces of the warriors outside. He tried not to wince at the sound of those beautiful swords thunking at the wooden exterior of the TARDIS. Really, those were priceless heirlooms that they were ruining on his beautiful ship!

"What the hell did you do?" Rose shrieked, laughing as she gasped for breath. She stripped off her jean jacket, breathless, tossing it on the railing of the TARDIS as she half-glared at Jack.

"I didn't mean it. I simply forgot to take my shoes off at a sacred shrine, that's all."

One of the most well known facts about Japanese culture, even in Jack's time, but not necessarily a reason to call out the militia. "And?" The Doctor prompted.

"And, I may have been poking around the Imperial Palace with my shoes on, without anyone knowing."

"Jack," they both groaned in unison.

"It wasn't my fault that I surprised the Emperor's wife...and her maids. And I was just trying to get a good look. It might be my only chance, after all."

"What part of 'lay low and behave yourself' did you not understand in my instructions?" The Doctor stormed to the console, even as the warriors continued to batter at his ship outside.

"Admit it, even when you did tell me to do that, you knew I probably wouldn't." Jack snickered. He glanced at Rose. "You should have seen your face."

"Yeah, you should have seen yours with all those swords coming at you."

The Time Rotor wheezed into life as the Doctor scowled. He threw them into the future, thousands of years, somewhere above Earth, if anything to just give them a chance catch their breath. "One of these days, Jack, you are going to gamble with that life of yours and lose it."

"Yeah, but in the meantime, you have to admit it was kind of funny, me running from all those swords?"

At that the Doctor did burst into laughter. "Okay, that part was funny. How you get into these situations, I will..."

And then, time stopped.

The world flashed. He thought he heard Rose scream his name. And then there was nothing.

He awoke to the noise of loud, blaring techno music in a cupboard that spun and vomited him out into a horrible, neon colored room. The sushi in his stomach from 1336 Kyoto threatened to upend itself onto the ugly, shag carpeting, as someone gasped and screamed in his general direction.

What the hell had just happened to him?


	34. The Pied Piper

Bad Wolf!

The words floated in front of him, cold and stark against the metal of the game station, the same words that had followed him through his adventures, ever since he took Rose's hand. He had heard them above a burning earth, had seen them graffitied on the side of the TARDIS, had heard them in Van Statten's bunker. Hell, they'd been the very words that Margaret Blaine had chosen for her failed Cardiff power station. And this wasn't the first time he had seen them on this station. They had appeared before, when this had been a news station, reporting some silly story that the Face of Boe was pregnant. And he had no idea why they kept following him as he stared up at them emblazoned above him.

"Who is this Bad Wolf?"

"Don't know," Lynda with a "Y" admitted, her pixie face staring up at the words. "They've been in charge since before I could remember.

"Since this was Satellite Five?"

"Since before then. They've been around forever." Lynda said this with the assurance of an old, staple brand name, like a toothpaste or a television. "They rule the world or so I'm told."

"And no one has ever seen them? Any board members, any chairman, spokesperson?"

"People are too busy watching telly to care about those type of things."

The Doctor found that hard to believe, despite the fact he knew it to be true. Humans lived and died, they ate and worked, all the while these words controlled their every movement, as if they weren't the name of something ancient and powerful, some entity that had revealed itself to him and who he had been stalked by for nearly a year now. Was it responsible for this? And what did it want with him?

"Maybe it is trying to keep you all busy with telly and not paying attention," he reasoned, as something clicked with him.

"Why," Lynda wondered, looking confused.

"That's what we need to figure out." The Doctor spun, glancing to all the doors, looking for one that would lead to the lift. "Right, need to get to an access port. I know of one, same one that prat Adam used. I think I remember where it was."

"Access for what?" Lynda rushed behind, following him as his quick steps ate across the floor.

"My friends, need to see which games they are in and rescue them."

"Who are they? What do they look like?"

The Doctor paused to stare at her, causing the girl to blush at the strangeness of her line of questioning. She stammered, twisting her fingers together. "I mean, maybe if I knew something, we could take a wild guess. Narrow it down a bit. You watch enough of these shows you figure out the types they like for it."

Not a completely foolish line of reasoning, the Doctor realized. He was beginning to like this Lynda, for all that she was cute and sweet. She had a brain on her shoulders at least. "Right, Jack. He's a bloke, thirties, tends to think with his gun rather than his brain. The tall, dark, and devastatingly handsome type, a million watt smile and enough charisma to choke himself with it."

"A hottie," Lynda giggled. Lord, even Jack's description sent her into fits. "Right, well, he could be in any of the action challenge games, if he's athletic. But, if he's pretty, they might pick him for one of the dating games. Maybe even a makeover one. An excuse to get him naked on camera."

"Like Jack needs an excuse," the Doctor muttered, pulling out his sonic at the lift controls.

"What about the other?"

"Rose," he replied, tweaking the sonic, aiming it at where the mother board had been on this thing the last time. To his relief it worked. The engines of the lift began to kick into gear, rattling along the giant shaft.

"So what about her," Lynda prompted.

"She's nineteen, blonde, beautiful." He couldn't help that last word as it tumbled out. He paused at Lynda's startled look. "Brilliant, she's brilliant. Dead clever, even if she hasn't got her A-levels. Handles herself in just about any situation, she does."

He pretended not to notice the hint of a crestfallen look on Lynda's face. "Well, if she's smart, maybe she's on one of the game shows? Course, if she's pretty, she could be with your friend then."

"Yeah," he muttered, watching anxiously for the lift to get to their floor. "If I'm lucky."

The shaft hummed and he held his breath, Lynda dancing anxiously beside him.

"You're friends," she finally cut into the silence, clearly curious. "They are important to you then?"

"Well, yeah?" He frowned down at her, wondering what sort of question that was, considering what he was going through to save them. It only occurred to him after her cheeks had turned crimson that she was asking because he had hinted that she could go too.

"I think you would like them, Lynda," he assured her. "We have all sorts of mad adventures, especially me and Rose."

"Yeah!" Lynda beamed, her eyes sparkling at the prospect. Poor thing, just a kid, likely Rose's age. All she had ever known was a world run by a corporation who nobody knew and a television filled with horrific reality shows that made Logan's Run look like utopia. And here he was, this heroic figure, waltzing into her life, turning it all upside down, and offering to show her something different, something better. He was like the Pied Piper gone mad, that was what he was.

"Look, Lynda." He eyed the quickly counting digital display above the lift as he spoke. "If we get out of this and if I get my friends back, I'll take you with. But you should know, my life, my world, it isn't fun. It isn't like your telly. It's dangerous and it's real, and there's no getting out of it should things go wrong."

Lynda blinked up at him, all sweetness and light.

"No offense," she replied, glancing at the the game rooms behind them. "But it can't be much worse than sitting around in that place, waiting for death to come for you, can it?"

She had a point. He grinned, madly. "Right! Well, let's go track down my friends and this Bad Wolf character and put things right together, shall we?"

"Okay," she grinned as the lift doors finally opened. "Where are we going?"

"Observation deck. There's a computer there. And let's hope I can hack into it to tell me what I want."

He slammed the button for the floor he wanted, the lift giving a great lurch underneath them.

"Doctor!" Lynda squealed as she stumbled and fell into him. He grabbed her before she could slam them both into the wall.

"Another thing, Lynda with a Y," he offered to her as he righted her. "Best get used to being quick on your feet. You're going to have to run a bit.


	35. The Death of Rose Tyler

Her screams echoed in his ears even as he fell to his knees by the spot where she had disappeared.

It had taken less than the space of a breath for it to happen. He had found Rose Tyler, alive and whole, if only just. He had been far too relieved to stop her as she broke and ran, despite Jack's warning. She had only been following her instinct, the same one that had followed since she had met him, that urge to run and take his hand. And in doing so she had become a target. He had watched in horror as the stream of energy sped towards her, his hearts stopping within him as she disappeared in a flash of blinding light.

When it disappeared, all that was left of her was an impossibly small pile of white ash. 

He didn't register Jack's screams, the flash of his weapon, the threat of death spewing from him. He didn't even notice Lynda hovering nearby. He simply reached for the pile of fine granules, silken and soft beneath his fingers. A stiff wind could blow them away, scattering Rose Tyler forever, as if she had never existed. As if she had never mattered.

Rough hands pulled at him, even as Jack continued to shout threats, but the Doctor didn't care. He thought he heard someone mention something about arrest, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered at the moment. Rose Tyler was gone from the universe, and thus the universe itself just didn't seem that important.

There was shoving and commands. Jack was finally apprehended, or at least he had stopped shouting and waving his gun. Even quiet, meek Lynda followed, through the corridors and to the lift, where voices rumbled into communication devices. He had no idea what they even said. What did it matter what they did? He had failed. A big failure he was. He had promised to keep Rose safe. He had promised Mickey the Idiot. He had promised Jackie. Hell, he had promised Pete to keep his little girl safe, to get her home to her mother. And now he couldn't take her home to Jackie, not even a body, a woman who lost her husband and now her only child and she would likely never know it, because he was captured and he'd let her daughter die.

_I wouldn't have missed it for the world…_

He felt their weapons in his back as he was pushed off the lift, towards a holding area where guards watched all three of them with stony faces. Lynda stared at it all, wide, doe eyes in her pixie face, glancing back in fear and worry at the Doctor. He shouldn't have brought her here, not her too, another death to have on his hands. Another innocent to fall because of him.

Innocent blood, so much innocent blood. Gallifrey falling over and over again. The screams and cries of millions as The Moment awoke and burned, leaving death and destruction in its wake. Time Lord and Dalek alike, all caught in the fire, as time locked them all into the living hell that he had created. Their agony reverberated in his soul as now Rose Tyler's voice mingled with theirs, a symphony of destruction, all at his hand. Mickey had been right. He was indeed the Oncoming Storm and death followed in his wake.

Pictures were taken. Something akin to rights were read, at least he supposed they were. He barely listened. Rose's final moments replayed again and again in his mind. The Bad Wolf Corporation. That was who ran this place, who killed the likes of Rose Tyler for sport. The Bad Wolf. The entity that had dogged him from the moment he took that girl's hand in the Powell Estates. Had that been its plan this entire time? Had it been following Rose through all of time and space, waiting for that moment when he would come to care for her the most, to come to need her the most, only to rip her away from him, to destroy her? Had this been what this was all about, some cosmic entity out to destroy the last vestiges of a soul that he had? Perhaps it was punishment for what he did? Perhaps it was revenge for Gallifrey? But if so, why Rose? Why a girl an innocent and brilliant as her? Why snuff her life out of existence instead of his? Why take her away? So many innocents, so casually stolen. No more Lyndas no more Roses. No more would he allow this. Not from the Bad Wolf or anyone else. He was, after all, the Oncoming Storm. And his anger roared within him, like distant thunder.

He turned to meet Jack's gaze, sapphire fire, cold and furious. Jack, the man of action, the warrior, knew without words what it was that must be done. He could see him calculate and gauge, eyes flickering between the guards and their weapons.

"Let's do it," the Doctor intoned. And in one swift move Jack was up with the Doctor behind, grabbing the guards' weapons, knocking them out and locking them in. Lynda, wide eyed, stood beside them, fear in her gazes as she looked up at the Doctor's cold, hard expression.

"Where are the people who control this place," Jack barked at her, his fury barely in check, as if Lynda herself were responsible for this.

"I don't know," she stuttered, her hands twisting at she stared up at the other man's wrath. "No one knows. No one ever sees them."

"I know where they are," the Doctor growled, more at Jack than at the petrified Lynda. "Same place as last time."

He moved decisively to the lift, weapon in front of him like the soldier he once had been.

"Where," Jack called.

"Level 500," he muttered as the lift doors opened to him. "The place where the walls are covered in gold."

"How do you know," Jack asked, Lynda close behind as they entered the lift.

"Because he was here before," Lynda supplied gravely, glancing back to the Doctor. "Back when it was Satellite Five."

"Yeah, and I stopped it back then, when the Jagrafess held it," he replied, words sharp as glass as the lift shot straight for the top. "I never meant for this to happen."

He had done what he always did. He had come, saved the day, and fled, despite Cathica's insistence that she couldn't fix what remained. He had been so focused on Adam and his betrayal that he had ignored Cathica's truth. His damn insistence on never staying, on always running, of never facing the consequences of his own actions, it had cost the Earth. It had cost him. And it had cost Rose...his Rose, who he would never be able to bring back.

"No one is blaming you, Doctor," Jack rumbled by his side. Clearly, for his companion, the Doctor wasn't to blame.

"No?" The Doctor turned to meet the other man's hard, blue gaze. "I do."

With that, the lift stopped on Level 500.


	36. The Oncoming Storm

It was his worst nightmares come true. A midnight sky filled with hundreds of Dalek ships, all of those he had thought dead in Time War, all of those he thought he had killed himself, all of those whom he had thought burned along with his people, there alive, hovering over the Earth, waiting through centuries just for him.

"That's impossible," Jack breathed over his shoulder. "I know those ships. They were destroyed."

"Obviously they survived," the Doctor whispered, watching the horror on the screen unfold before him.

"Who did?" Lynda was clueless, though she could sense the fear. "Who are they?"

The Doctor didn't even want to utter their name.

"Two hundred ships," he murmured, eyes fixated on them as they spun lazily in their orbit. "More than two thousand on board. That's just about half a million of them."

"Half a million what?" The man, the one who seemed to be somewhat in charge, watched the proceedings with wide eyes.

"Daleks," the Doctor finally intoned, not disguising the terror he felt.

"Doc," Jack whispered. "They can't be! It can't be! You know it can't be."

"What, because I killed them? Yeah Jack, I watched them burn. I made them burn." He turned to stare up at his friend, remembering all too well that awful day so long ago. "But the Daleks had learned time travel. That's how the war began. I thought they were all gone, but some of them survived, slip through time."

And they now ended up here.

"What are they?" Lynda voiced again the question that all of the other humans in the room were also silently asking him.

"Daleks are the stuff of nightmares," he replied quietly. "They are mutants, changed to serve the purpose of a madman, xenophobic to the extreme. The are cold, calculating, and extremely intelligent. And they will kill anything that they deem to be different."

"But not us, right?" One of the females, a woman who looked to be of Indian ancestry on Earth, spoke up, almost pleading.

"Oh, no." The Doctor shook his head sadly. "No, you are their primary target. You've only been allowed to live because of me. You were the bait that got me here."

The whole time the Bad Wolf was nothing more or less than his ancient enemy. But what had it all to do with Rose? To his horror, he soon found out. The screen fuzzed in its resolution, the image shivering and melting as a new one took it's place. On it stood Rose, flanked by no less than three Daleks.

_And she was alive!_

She was standing there, living, breathing, and defiant. And heaven help him if he could reach through the screen, he'd kiss her, and damn the consequences. She met his eyes through the transmission, fearful, but determined. His Rose, brave even in this.

"I will talk to the Doctor," the first Dalek intoned in its grating, electronic voice, sending cold chills up and down the Doctor's spine.

"Oh, will you now?" He slapped on false cheerfulness as he smiled manically into the screen. "That's nice! Hello!" He waved in fake jocularity. Then the grin melted off of his face.

It hardly affected the Dalek. "The Dalek Stratagem nears completion. The Fleet is almost ready. You will not intervene."

"Oh really," the Doctor mocked. "And why's that then?"

"We have your associate," the Dalek replied simply. The Doctor's eyes flickered to Rose. "You will obey or she will be exterminated."

He stared at her, Rose Tyler, the girl who had worked her way into a life he had been determined to live alone. He, the Doctor, the destroyer of worlds, the killer of his own kind. He had not deserved to have anyone or anything care about him. And yet there was Rose Tyler, who took his hand and came with him, when all reason said she shouldn't. She was alive. He hadn't killed her. And she was standing bravely, even in the face of the Daleks around her. Terrified, yes, but standing all the same.

Could he do any less?

"No!" His voice was hard as he spat out the single syllable. The eyes of every human beside him whipped around to stare at this madman saying this crazy thing. Even Rose's eyes widened, staring perplexed at him.

"Explain yourself!" The Dalek twitched in agitation.

"I said no," the Doctor reiterated, his voice rising.

"What is the meaning of this negative?" Clearly the Dalek didn't quite expect that answer. The Doctor almost wanted to laugh at its discomfort, to giggle maniacally at this creatures inability to understand when someone stood up to it and didn't give in to its demands.

"It means, 'no'," he replied slowly, as if the Dalek was a particularly thick child.

"But she will be destroyed!" The Dalek was now truly perplexed. Ahh, Daleks! Emotions were such funny things that they tried and constantly failed at understanding. Things like love and affection were not as simple as logarithms and logic and the Doctor delighted in that weakness. He reveled in it. Because he knew, now, how he could stop them, stop this, how to put his foot down and take back Rose.

"No!" The Doctor rose slowly, full of command and presence and the confidence that only a madman could have in the face of a Dalek. "'Cause this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to rescue her."

He stared straight at Rose, who smiled, pride and assurance breaking over her face like the sun after a storm. He stood, glaring fire and brimstone down on the Dalek who dared to speak to him, the Doctor, the last of the Time Lords. "I'm going to save Rose Tyler from the middle of the Dalek fleet. And then I'm going to save the Earth. And then, to finish it off, I'm going to wipe every last, stinking Dalek out of the sky!"

His voice rang as he spit out his words, the rush of blood, rage, and madness in his ears. Even through the transmission he could sense their panic and terror. This had not been what the Daleks had expected! This was not the reaction they had wanted at all!

"But you have no weapons, no plan, no defenses," the speaking Dalek protested in confounded worry. As if these paltry items mattered at all to him, the Doctor.

"Yeah!" He found himself grinning, a smile that was both insane and deadly. "And doesn't that scare you to death?"

Clearly, judging by their agitated reaction, it did.

"Rose!" His eyes whipped to hers.

She smiled, eager. "Yes, Doctor?"

"I'm coming to get you." It wasn't a statement. It was a promise.

With a flick of the remote he turned off the screen.

Behind him, the collective room took a deep, frightened breath.

"Were...were those Daleks?" The head controller's voice shook as he pointed towards the now blank screen. Indeed, most of the humans, save for Jack, looked both confused and terrified by what they saw.

"Yeah," the Doctor replied, snapping his attention towards Jack. "We need to get to the TARDIS."

"You can't just go in there with no plan!" It was the woman, her liquid dark eyes wide and wild. "They said they'd kill her! They'd certainly kill you!"

"They can try," the Doctor scoffed. "Nine hundred years and they haven't managed it yet, Besides, they have Rose. And I won't let her die like that, not with them I won't. I've almost lost her before to them. I won't do it again."

"If we are heading towards the Dalek fleet, Doc, we will need some sort of shields." Jack's keen mind was already calculating, strategizing. "What do you got onboard?"

"I've got shields, enough to hold off a horde, but not enough for a Dalek battle fleet."

"Can't you just materialize the TARDIS straight on board?"

The Doctor had thought of that. "The Daleks had a cloaking field up to hide their presence here. I won't be able to get through that unless I fly up close.

"So you have to get in there." Jack considered for half a second. "You have Margaret's extrapolator. There's enough juice left in it, I could power up the shields, at least enough for you to fly in and get near to Rose."

"That will work." The Doctor spun towards the archive where his beloved ship waited. The controllers all broke in his wake, some staring in fear, others in awe, but none wanting to get in his way. "The rest of you, stay here, monitor the fleet. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"And what if they kill you?" The head controller called, somewhat fearful. The Doctor supposed it was a valid enough question in the face of everything. He stopped, turning to regarding the poor man in his shirt and tie. Just a fellow, doing his job, caught in something he didn't understand. It was the cruelty of the universe.

"Then I suggest you all get off this satellite and get out of here as fast as you can. Warn the Earth, tell them to prepare for what is coming, because the Daleks will come for you next."

He spun, beckoning Jack as he began to move towards his ship again.

"Doctor!" Lynda came running behind him. He didn't turn towards her but that didn't seem to stop her. "Doctor, how can I help? What do you want me to do?"

"Get off this satellite and go home, Lynda with a Y," he replied firmly, opening the TARDIS. He paused, long enough to look at her, this sweet, sprite of a girl. "You don't need to be a part of this."

"But I am a part of this. I want to stay here!" She eyed the unfamiliar shape of the TARDIS. "I could help."

"Not in this. Get off here. I'll be fine."

He gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile. He hoped it didn't look as fake as he felt in that moment. To his relief, Jack stepped in, patting Lynda on the shoulder.

"We'll be back, don't you worry. I've yet to see the Doctor get licked. And we'll stop them, and everyone can go home, safe and sound." He flashed Lynda one of his megawatt smiles, leaning over to brush his lips against her cheek. It had the desired effect. The girl flushed from head to toe, looking embarrassed as she nodded her head and pulled away from Jack's charm.

"I hope you get your friend back," she called after them, sincere and earnest. "I'll see you soon, Doctor?"

"If all goes well." He didn't want to give her false promises. "Best of luck, Lynda."

He closed the door on her, the Time Rotor already kicking to life as he moved towards the console.

"I hate lying to the kid," Jack mused ruefully, staring at the doors regretfully for only the briefest of moments.

"Got to get a move on, Jack, Rose is out there."

"Yeah," the other man dove towards the hallway beyond. "I'll go get the extrapolator, you put us into flight."

As the Doctor listened to Jack's footsteps thunder through the TARDIS, he considered the audacity of this plan, the utter insanity of it, and he hoped like hell that it actually worked.


	37. The Parting of the Ways

The Doctor had been far too much of a coward to lie to them.

In the end he had left it to Jack. Brilliant, brave Jack, who knew the odds far better than the rest of the huddled remnants on the satellite did, and yet had shrugged as he met the Doctor's measured gaze, turned to the controllers and programmers left on board, and began formulating his grand plan of defense. Jack was far too good at what he did; so smooth, so cool as he assured them that simple bullets could destroy the Daleks armor. It must have been how he could be so very successful with his many conquests, those nerves of steel. The Doctor almost envied his courage. Jack knew he was leading them all on a suicide mission. The odds of any of them surviving were none. And yet he was willing to take on that burden himself, because he knew that the Doctor couldn't. And for the rest of his days, however brief they may be, the Doctor thought he would be forever grateful to Jack Harkness for it.

They all gathered around one of the broadcasting computers, even Rose, as Jack outlined his plan. There she was, that determined look on her face. She knew the truth about the Daleks, knew that Jack's words were a pipe dream and yet she stood there, ready to fight, to die with these utter strangers. Just for him. That the Doctor couldn't allow.

"Rose," he called from where he sat in his tangle of of plastic and copper, voice sharp and taught, catching her attention away from the others. "You can help me. I need all those wires stripped bare."

She did as she was asked without comment, silently snagging a pair of wire strippers from the counter to begin peeling the plastic casings from around the bundle of wires he'd yanked from the bank of servers. He was grateful she made no protest, as he half thought she might. He didn't know what he could say that wouldn't make it blatantly obvious he was deliberately keeping her away from harms way. The hell he was letting her go down in the fools quest that Jack was committing himself to. He had watch her die once already this day, and he couldn't do it any further, not again. He would not test his promise to her parents any further.

The others broke, though he saw no hope in their eyes, save Lynda. Perky, sweet, adventurous Lynda, who sauntered over to him with her shy smile, wrapping her fingers in knots around each other. He stood to greet her. She knew the truth, or at least suspected it, he could read it in her nervous bouncing, in the her false, cute cheer. Even so, she was still, like an eager puppy, wanting to please him.

"I just want to say that...um...thanks, I suppose. And I'll do my best."

"Me too," he grinned, nervous, that sort of laughter that you have when one doesn't know what to do. He could just ask that she too stay, even if it cut Jack's numbers even further, demand that she help Rose. Judging from Rose's death glare beside him he highly doubted she'd appreciate the gesture. Despite that, he should. He was the reason this girl stayed rather than fled like he asked her to. But instead he faltered and fumbled, wondering what to do. Hug her tightly? He hardly knew her, sweet as she was. He settled on a handshake with her, a firm and friendly goodbye. 

He could save her. But he didn't. Beside him, Rose ripped through one of the copper wires, nearly slicing her thumb. He said nothing, choosing to ignore her jealousy for now. He felt too tired to deal with it.

"It's been fun!" Jack's swagger and cavalier smile didn't quite meet the solemnity in his brilliant eyes. He sobered, glancing at them both. "But I guess this is goodbye."

The Doctor smiled, sadly, for he realized in that moment he had come to care for Jack Harkness despite himself. Cocky and charming and courageous he was, whether he knew it or not. So easy to fall in love with.

"Don't talk like that," Rose admonished and the Doctor's heart ached at her confidence. "The Doctor's going to do it. You just watch him!"

Rose Tyler, who thought he could do anything. In her eyes he was invincible, and if he could have cried in that moment, the Doctor would have, in the face of her unwavering faith. Even Jack's expression softened, his hands coming up to cup her face, adoration in his sad smile.

"Rose," he murmured, bittersweet and sincere. "You are worth fighting for."

The Doctor wondered, briefly, if Jack was telepathically channeling his very thoughts or if he was at least projecting them to the other man. But no, they were Jack's own. The Doctor was glad that it was Jack who was brave enough to vocalize them. He hardly minded as the other man bent to kiss Rose's lips gently, a chaste brush of affection and farewell, before he turned to to grin wildly at the Doctor.

"Wish I'd never met you, Doctor," he cheerfully quipped. Like with Rose, Jack cupped the Doctor's face, his warm, calloused hands gentle on the Doctor's cool skin. "I was much better off a coward."

The Doctor didn't bother to move as Jack's lips found his, soft and caressing, tasting of metal, sweat, and adrenaline. He felt his hearts break, just a little, as the other man pulled away, regret, longing, and admiration in Jack's gaze. With a hand on each of their shoulders, Jack straightened, tall and proud, as if he were in a uniform and not a t-shirt and vest. Pointing to the exit, he looked at neither of them, as if steeling himself for what was to come.

"See you in hell!" It was his parting farewell as he ran to the door without looking back. The Doctor certainly hoped that whatever Jack's destiny was, hell wasn't it.

"He's going to be all right." Rose looked to him as if seeking his assurance that all would be well. But the Doctor could only meet her gaze and say nothing.

They fell to work in silence.

He began sonicing wires together in lieu of solder, twisting and melting as Rose cut and stripped. The process was tedious, but not difficult. Rose had worked with him for long enough as he puttered on the TARDIS that she was old hat at it and quick with the tool. Despite the metal ends tearing at the tender flesh of her thumb, she pulled and handed the naked ends to him as she finished.

It was ten minutes before she finally said anything.

"So who is Lynda?"

He had a feeling that she was going to come up, somehow. "A girl in the game I was in. Why?"

"Just curious." She was more than that, but the Doctor didn't have it in him to chastise her for the pettiness. After all, he reasoned in an uncharacteristically self-reflective mood, had he been any less with Mickey, or Adam, or Jack?

"Lynda is a good girl, a nice one," he replied simply, casting Rose a hard look. She didn't meet his gaze, but he could see her face turn pink all the same. "She deserves better than the lot she got here."

Rose nodded, focused on the wires in her hand. "Will you take her with us?"

Could he really lie to Rose? He chose to evade, to sidestep. "I suppose it depends on how successful we are here, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess it does."

"Would you mind?"

Her shoulders stiffened, but she at least thought about it. "Maybe not. Depends. Wouldn't want her sticking around this place, yeah?"

"You just wouldn't want her staying?"

Rose at least looked guilty as he pressed her on the truth. "I'm not a monster, Doctor, if we can get her out of here, I say let's do it."

"But she's staying," he replied, knowing that somewhere below, Lynda was preparing to make a stand she wasn't going to win. "You have to admit, she's a bit brave doing that."

"Yeah," Rose murmured. "I know the feeling, wanting to stay and fight beside you."

Rose Tyler would, too, and there wouldn't be a damn thing he could do to stop her. Even if it was madness, even if she died, she would stay by his side, to hell and back. That was what terrified him at the moment, because the last thing he wanted was Rose Tyler by his side. It was far too deadly there.

"This isn't your fight, you know," he offered, matter-of-factly. "I mean, for Lynda, yeah, this is her home, her time, but you…"

"I'm not leaving you." Rose didn't bother looking up, her face set.

"I'm just saying…"

"Better with two, remember?" False cheer broke forth in a smile as she jerked hard at the plastic casing she was working on, nearly smacking herself in the face. He could force the issue. But he knew he hadn't the time. Rose would balk, they would quarrel, and he didn't have the luxury of time enough to convince her. He worked, fingers twisting and holding as he melted metal, ignoring the frantic panic just on the edges of what he hoped was his cool exterior.

"Suppose," Rose murmured, peeling plastic and glancing at him. He waited for her to continue.

"What?"

"Nothing." She waved him off. With Rose it was never nothing, and he was at a point where he'd run out of ideas, all of them. He was grasping at straws and had come up with the short one.

"You said suppose," he pressed.

"No, I was just thinking. I mean, obviously you can't, but you've got a time machine. Why can't you just go back to last week and warn them?"

It wasn't a horrible idea in Rose's reckoning. She had thought it through, in that way Rose had, even if it wasn't feasible. He was reminded why she had caught his attention in the first place, her cleverness. He just wished it was something that would work.

"As soon as the TARDIS lands, in that second, I become part of events, stuck in the timeline." Pity that time tended to work that way. It would make his life far easier.

"Yeah, thought it'd be something like that." Rose replied, shrugging as she carried on.

She hadn't mentioned the one solution that seemed the most obvious to him.

"There's another thing the TARDIS could do," he offered, cutting eyes towards her as they worked. "It could take us away. We could leave. Let history take its course. We go to Marbella in 1989."

He tossed it out there between them, that golden option to just flee, to play the part of cowards and hide from what fate had in store for them. A part of him wished desperately that she would say yes to that, so he had the excuse to just grab her hand and run back where they came. However, much as he had expected, she simply shook her head.

"Yeah, but you'd never do that." She stated it with utter confidence in his own sense of courage. Rose had much more faith in him than he did at the moment. Still, she was likely also right. He couldn't just walk away from people in need, especially not with the Daleks threatening these people and everything they held dear.

"No," he admitted. "But you could ask."

Rose looked at him as if he were mad for even suggesting it.

"Never even occurred to you, did it?" He was grateful in a way that it didn't.

"Well, I'm too good." She laughed, tongue peeking out of bright, white teeth, that brilliant smile. Too good? Yes. Far too good for the likes of him and for the likes of this. This place and this world wasn't the future Rose Tyler should have. It certainly wasn't where she was meant to die.

He felt the hum of energy through the joined cords and a beep at the computer behind them. Finally! "The Delta Wave started building. How long does it need?"

They rushed to the console, the Doctor scanning data, hoping that his adjustments had paid off. In a way, they had. Rather than three days, it would take him three hours. Not bad, but still far too long for the Dalek's. They would be here in minutes and he'd be lucky if a handful of human defenders led by Jack Harkness could hold them off that long. He hung his head in the knowledge that despite all of his brilliance, he had come to the end of his rope.

"Is that bad?" Rose, anxious over his shoulder, attempted to understand the readings. "Okay, it's bad. How bad is it?"

Bad enough he knew she was going to die.

It only took a heartbeat to make his decision. Less than that, the space of a breath, that moment between seconds. He knew in that instant he had to let her go, to send her home, her and the TARDIS. He couldn't let the Daleks get a hold of his beautiful ship, the two closest things he had in his blighted life. He had to send them far away, before they succumbed to what was coming, and he had to do it now, before she figured it out or he changed his mind. He couldn't lie to those people earlier, but he certainly was going to pull a ripper now. Slapping on his most brilliant, manic grin, he turned up to her, eyes sparkling, pretending he was at least considering it. "Rose Tyler, you're a genius. We can do it! If I use the TARDIS to cross my old timeline….yes!"

With mania born of desperation he tore off towards his ship, Rose close behind, right up to the console. He flipped at buttons, specific ones, emergency ones he had never bothered explaining to Rose. He gestured to one, large, important looking black button on the far side of the console. "Hold that down and keep position."

Long experience told him if he told someone to do something with enough authority and command, they'd do it forever, and Rose was no different. She eagerly went to do as he bid, holding down the button with both hands, grinning as she waited for his next, impressive, magic act.

"What's it do?"

"Cancels the buffers." It wasn't completely untrue, that's precisely what it did do, on video messages. "If I'm clever, and I'm more than clever, I'm brilliant, I might just save the world - or rip it apart."

"I'd go for the first one," she teased.

"Me too," he agreed. Certainly he would love to save the world. Right now, he would just settle for saving Rose Tyler. "Now, I've just got to go and power up the Game Station. Hold on!"

He bolted out of the doors, back into the mess of wires and cabling, stopping in the midst of the storm of it. Turning, he glanced back at his oldest friend and his pink-and-yellow companion for the last time. Before he could dare even talk himself out of it, he raised his sonic screwdriver.

The TARDIS engines groaned to life, pumping and wheezing, as the blue, police light at the top flashed in time. The winds of time whipped from out of the Vortex as the TARDIS slammed her doors shut. Inside, he could hear Rose's confused voice call out. "Doctor, what are you doing? Can I take my hand off? It's moving?"

He said nothing as his beloved ship began her slow disappearance back in time. Rose's fists slammed against the doors. Finally she had given up on his big, black button, but it was no use. He could hear her screaming for him, demanding he let her out, asking what he had done. They disappeared, fading into nothing, Rose's angry, frantic demands ringing in his ears. About now, his holographic image would appear, explaining the truth to her, how he had sent her away and how the TARDIS was taking her home. She'd return to Jackie and Mickey, safe and sound, nary a scratch on her. And she could live out the rest of her days, safe, happy, content. Sure, she'd like as not be furious at him, for a while. She'd probably curse him. He rather hoped she'd miss him. But eventually, she'd forget the mad, old man with his big ears and daft face, who had wandered into her life one day at the shop she worked at. And she'd go on to live the beans-on-toast life he interrupted, maybe marry Mickey, maybe not, though he'd hope she married someone amazing, someone who would fill her life full of laughter and adventure and show her what a beautiful creature she was. And one day, when she was old, a life fully lived behind her, he hoped she would remember him, this broken soldier, and learn to forgive him for what he did.

Thousands of years in the past, Rose Tyler was living her life, day-by-day, without him. It hurt. And yet, he'd never be sorry for letting her into his life or for letting her go. She had her chance to have a fantastic life. The Doctor turned stared at the tangle of wires before him. He had work to do if he had any hope or prayer of succeeding. He quietly settled himself down, picking up one of the wires Rose so recently peeled and returned to what he had been doing.


	38. The Golden Goddess

It was his sentence, the final judgement by the race he had sacrificed everything to destroy, even his own people. Above him, on the massive screen, the giant, pulsing, putrescent eye gazed down at him in majesty and disdain. The Emperor of the Daleks, calling out the fate of his greatest enemy.

"You are the heathen," it's great, rumbling, electronic voice intoned with no hint of feeling or mercy. "You will be exterminated."

Honestly, it wasn't exactly a fate the Doctor was surprised by. After all, everyone else on this station had died. The two controllers, so very much attracted to one another, sweet and innocent Lynda with a Y, even Jack, who went out exactly as he would have wanted to, guns blazing. All that was left standing was him, the Doctor, the broken remnant of a failed war. His people had fought, and now they had finally and completely lost.

"Maybe it's time," he replied quietly, facing facts. He had lived too long, far longer than he should have. No one else remained, there was nothing left in this universe for him to fight for or live for.

And then came the last sound in all of the universe he had ever expected to hear again.

_You know the sound the TARDIS makes? That wheezing, groaning? That sound brings hope wherever it goes, to anyone who hears it, Doctor. Anyone, however lost...even you..._

The Doctor spun to stare behind him, swearing it was Rose who spoke to him as slowly, bit by bit, his beloved ship materialized, returning to this reality despite it all. Around him the Daleks screamed and bellowed, vowing he would not escape, but it was the furthest thing from his addled mind. His ship shouldn't be here, it should be with Rose. If the Daleks were to get a hold of it...

Before he could even reason an answer, the TARDIS doors flung open in a burst of golden light. In its wake stood Rose, bright, shining, so much so he couldn't look at her straight on. Something made his knees go weak as he stumbled and for the first time in the Doctor's very long life he felt so very small, so completely infinitesimal in front of another being.

And the worst of it all, it was Rose. His Rose. The horror and beauty of it all was almost too much to bear.

"What have you done," he gasped, eyes wide at the golden streams of energy emanating through the room. It wasn't simply a broken hearted plea, it was true and honest confusion, terror at what was standing before him and how it came to exist in the one creature he had promised he would protect.

With a blink of his eyes, she shifted from the TARDIS to standing right over him. She was still clad on her lounging pants and hoodie, the very same he had seen her in when she left just minutes ago, but there was something different about her, something ageless and primal, familiar and strange, comforting and terrifying. She was ancient and endless and so very, very beautiful. His ears rang with the howl of immense power, the same howling one could hear in the middle of the cyclone that was the Vortex. And when she spoke, her voice wasn't the street wise, cheeky voice of Rose Tyler, with it's Eastender accent, filled with broken syllables. Her voice was now smooth, lilting, the tone Rose's, but with something else, something so old it made his bones ache. "I looked into the TARDIS and the TARDIS looked into me."

The Doctor's eyes filled with tears at the full weight of what she had done to herself hit him. She had witnessed Margaret, knew it could be possible. But Rose, she was human, just a human!

"You looked into the Time Vortex?" His hearts broke, eyes filling with tears. "Rose, no one is meant to see that!" Only Time Lords ever managed it, and then only once in their lives. No living creatures could take on that awesome, awful power, not even his race, and she was so much more fragile.

So caught up was he in Rose's presence and the tragedy of it, he had forgotten about the Daleks. But the Emperor had not forgotten them, and his voice rumbled through the air, filled with fear and awe. "This is the Abomination!"

Rose's gaze flew up, hard and majestic, as if only seeing this supposedly all-powerful Dalek for the first time. His minions screamed their singular "exterminate" more in horror than in command. But the the beam of lethal power that shot towards her stopped at the impenetrable wall of her palm, deflecting harmlessly against the metal wall of the station itself. Rose hardly seemed to flinch.

"I am the Bad Wolf," she intoned, naming herself against the Dalek accusations. "I create myself."

And now it all became painfully clear to the Doctor.

She gestured towards the giant sign over the screen, the words flying off, hovering in the air, spinning in a breeze of her own creation, the Vortex buffeting them with the winds of time. "I take the words, and I scatter them in space and time."

With another gesture the words disappeared, vanishing to wherever she had pushed them.

"A message to lead myself here." Her face turned towards the Doctor, no longer the warm, honeyed cinnamon he was so used to, but golden, blazing, like the heart of his TARDIS, like the heart of the Vortex when he had gazed into it so very long ago. It had made some people mad. It had made him run. But now, all he could do was watch in terror as something omnipotent stared out of Rose Tyler's gaze.

"Rose, you've got to stop this," he pleaded. "You've got to stop this now. You've got the entire Vortex running through your head! You're going to burn!"

For a moment the Bad Wolf disappeared, the golden light diminishing to a whiskey color as Rose blinked back at him. "I want you safe, my Doctor. Protected from the false god."

Her words only earned indignant ire from the creature on the screen, though there was no hiding his fear as well. "You cannot hurt me! I am immortal."

The Bad Wolf glared at him and his arrogance, mocking it. "You are tiny," she called, her voice a crystalline ring of truth, a being far more powerful than this so-called Dalek deity. "I can see the whole of time and space!"

She raised her palm again, hovering it over the gathered Dalek soldiers, who stood immobile in front of this goddess without their own god to lead them. "I take every single atom of your existence," she breathed. "And I divide them."

As simple as the flick of her fingers, the Daleks surrounding them on the satellite began to disintegrate. Their hard, metal shells turned into dust in a wind of time, drifting towards the floor without a sound. The mighty Dalek forces turned to nothing with the wave of a hand. The Doctor stared at the sight in awe.

The Bad Wolf remained, tears running down her face, streaking it with golden light and running mascara. "Everything must come to dust," she pronounced. "All things. Everything dies."

A great golden wave emanated from her as the Daleks outside the station fell into nothingness.

"The Time War ends," she commanded. And in his soul, the Doctor knew it was so.

The Emperor did not.

"I will not die! I cannot die!" His voice cried in futility through the communication link, even as the golden wave of Time itself spread through his ship. The winds of the Time Vortex ripped it apart, atom by atom, scattering it through space, as if it had never been there. As if it had never existed.

The golden goddess now stood still.

"Rose," the Doctor gasped, terrified of her and for her. "You've done it! Now stop. Just let go."

His begging caught her attention. She turned her shining head towards him. "How can I let go of this," she asked, her voice breaking at the sheer wonder of it. "I bring life!"

Somewhere, in the depths below, the Doctor could sense a time line cut brutally short jump back into existence and turning into a singular, diamond hard point. Jack Harkness had come back to life. There in the flood of time surrounding Rose, the Doctor could sense the man take his breath and become something that no human being should ever become; a fixed point. Events of course could be fixed, like Pete Tyler's death. But Rose, loving Rose, who had seen that awful event, wanted to stop it for her friend, and she had. Now Jack Harkness would live forever. The Doctor's gut turned as he realized this and knew he had to stop Rose before her heart and intentions did more damage than good. 

"But this is wrong," he reasoned. "You can't control life and death!"

"But I can," she insisted, as if she didn't understand the moral or time dilemma she was creating. "The sun and the moon, the day and the night."

She paused, her exquisite gaze darkening as molten gold tears ran down her mascara smeared cheeks. "But why do they hurt?"

With those words, the Doctor's grief and guilt knew no bounds. "The power's going to kill you and it's all my fault."

Rose didn't seem to hear him. Her gaze was distant, as if she was watching something that only she could visualize. "I can see everything," she wondered aloud, as if in awe of it all. "All that is. All that was. All that ever could be."

The Doctor popped up from where he sat on the floor, knowing those words. He knew them well. That described exactly what went through his head, every breath of every day since he was eight-years-old, since he took had looked into the Vortex. Rose Tyler, for this brief, blinding moment had the same power he did, the power of a Time Lord.

"That's what I see, all the time!" He grinned, for the shortest moment, pleased that there was at least one being in this entire, lonely universe who knew and understood exactly what it was like to be him, now that all the others were gone. But it couldn't last, because he knew what it was doing to her. "And doesn't it drive you mad?"

Rose turned her tear-drenched face to him, grimacing in pain. "My head," she whimpered, lips trembling. She couldn't hold it any more and there was only one way to get it out.

"Come here," he commanded gently.

She did as she was bid, shuffling to him, the intensity of her suffering increasing with each second. "It's killing me," she whimpered, the pain excruciating.

He knew. Oh, but he understood that. And he knew what must be done. It was a sacrifice, he was well aware of that. But he had taken an oath many centuries before, when he had chosen the name she knew him by. It was his sacred trust and he would keep it, even when he knew the consequences.

"I think you need a Doctor," he quipped, pulling her gently towards him.

There were other ways he could have taken the Vortex energy out of her. Simply touching her temples perhaps would have been easier, but it lacked the dramatic effect of just hauling her against him and kissing her. And besides, after this, he'd have very little time and no more chances to do that one thing he had secretly wanted to try with this amazing, human girl he had come to love so completely. Well, at least no more chances in this body.

Her lips were soft against his, tasting of her lippy, salt, and Time itself, golden, ancient, and powerful. He felt it rush from her skin into him, filling his immense mind with all the might he had only glimpsed at as a child. The rush of it made him gasp as he pulled away from Rose's mouth, his vision covered in a golden haze. With the loss of the Vortex, he felt Rose crumble in his arms as he tightened his hold on her to keep her from falling hard to the metal floor. He let her sink, laying her out gently before he turned to his magnificent ship. He had a feeling he and the TARDIS were going to have to have a word before this was all done.

He stood, planting his feet, taking in a deep breath of air into his lungs. It skidded through his nose, smelling and tasting of Time. Gently he blew it back out, and with it went the radiant energy of the Vortex. A golden, sparkling stream of light flew back towards his ship, where he hoped it would stay, safe and sound, and not out in anyone's mind. He staggered somewhat at the loss of it.

A memory somewhere deep in his mind surfaced, the warning from one of the old proctors at the Academy, the one responsible for initiating the students as they trundled in their dress robes to stare into the Vortex and see what would become of them. The man had been thousands of years old. Someone quipped he was nearly as old as Rassilon had been. He had warned them with baleful gazes that they couldn't stare too long into the Untempered Schism or else they would burn into dust, and as they were not true Time Lords yet, they wouldn't be able to regenerate. Of course, it had scared them all properly, but as they aged few of them actually believed it, though none had dared tested it. The Doctor now regretted teasing the old proctor behind his back, for he had been more right than his younger self had wanted to admit. Even now, he could feel the change beginning, the burning of cells deep within himself. No living creature could absorb the radiation from the Time Vortex, not even Time Lords.

The Dalek Emperor would get his wish. And perhaps, he reasoned as he had moments ago, it was time. This life had been born in blood and fire and anger. He had spent so much of it angry and lost, bitter and lonely, pained and alone, until one day, quite on accident, he had stumbled onto the Autons in a department store in London and he ran into a girl who had changed his entire life.

He spun to face Rose, still unconscious on the floor. Kneeling beside her, he felt for her pulse and sighed in utter relief when it was there, strong and steady. She was simply knocked out. The shock of the Vortex and its loss likely would leave her without memory of the event or why she had such a wicked headache, and she would have one when she woke. Likely would be grumpy as well, and if he lived long enough, he would give her a tongue lashing the likes of which would make Jackie Tyler proud. But he had to get her out of there and to his TARDIS first and before he could change. If this one was anything like the others, he'd be a mess for hours, and would have no way of getting her out. As gently as he could manage, he lifted her off the cold floor, moving towards his ship. The TARDIS hummed pleasantly as he carefully maneuvered his companion through its doors and laid her on the grating, his strength already beginning to fail. He wouldn't be able to make it to her bed. All he could do now was throw the TARDIS into the Vortex and hope for the best.

Even as the machine began to wheeze into life, he knew he had forgotten someone. Jack. He could feel the other man's panic, fear, and hurt, and cursed. He didn't have time to wait, and odds were, he couldn't do much for him even if he could. What was done to Jack couldn't be undone. And frankly, the TARDIS would never allow Jack back on board, not in his new condition. And with his impending change, the Doctor didn't particularly find it wise having him on board either. He'd make it up to Jack, somehow, someday.

Besides, he supposed grimly, soon it wouldn't even necessarily be his exact problem.


	39. The Moment

The Doctor had always been rubbish at goodbyes.

He had meant to tell Rose about regeneration. Just like he had meant to tell most of his companions over the years. But just like with all of them, he had never really gotten around to it. None of his companions ever really got a warning beforehand what was happening until it was far too late, and then they had to deal with a new man all together. Perhaps it was that bit of him that was eternally afraid that they would be too bothered by it and turn him away. Maybe it was the idiotic confidence he always had that his time in any body couldn't be that close at hand. Really, it was just that he didn't know how to end things properly at all.

As he met Rose Tyler's confused gaze, now a blessed honeyed whiskey color again, he realized that in fact he didn't want to end this life. Not really. He had come into it, all anger and guilt, covered in the blood and the recrimination of the war and everything that had gone with it. He hadn't expected to be alive after that awful day, his hand on the Moment, watching his world burn. Consequently, he hadn't expected much out of this life. He'd assumed the only reason he'd been allowed to live was as a punishment at the hands of the weapon he'd unleashed on his people, made to suffer alone without them as the penalty for this grave crimes. And he had been determined to bear it with the sinner's penance, to somehow make right that thing which he never, ever could. The eternal Sisyphus, always pushing that boulder up the damn hill, only to have to start over again and again for all eternity. He had never expected to ever let go of that anger and guilt. And he certainly had never expected to come to love this life.

And all it took was grasping the hand of one, jeopardy-friendly shop girl.

"Before I go," he managed, despite the swirling, burning, pulsing pain lighting every nerve, every cell, every atom in his body. He smiled at the girl who had saved him from his eternal damnation. "I just want to tell you, you were fantastic."

Rose didn't understand. How could she? But she smiled tightly despite her silent pleas for him not to go. He wished he didn't have to. She had made it so that he wished that. She had turned what was a miserable existence something he could enjoy, and something he could be proud of.

"And you know what," he grinned, the weight of transgressions lifting as the tsunami of energy pooling in his middle finally broke loose, racing through his body. "So was I!"

It was a majestic, triumphant statement, a call to the universe, as the power he had been holding back unleashed itself in its full glory. His body was melting, burning, like the phoenix of old, every cell shifting in its coding, amino acids reconfiguring into new combinations around the singular strand of time that wended its way through all Time Lord genetics. Slowly, but surely, everything that had been the Doctor with this face began to change.

And in that moment, time simply stopped.

If he had breath to hold, he perhaps would have done it. His eyes opened, or at least seemed to. He was standing in that place. The desert, with it's gypsum white sands, and the tiny shack, on the edge of nowhere, made of wood that shouldn't exist in this environment, tattered and broken. He knew this place. He had seen it in his nightmares so many times.

Why this place?

Every regeneration was different. He had not yet had two that were the same. There had been one constant, however. Quiet or loud, peaceful or explosive, he'd always had that moment, that space between double heartbeats, when the old him died and the new him emerged. Perhaps it was simply a trick of the synapses, all firing at once as they shifted and changed, he never understood it. And he never really remembered that moment well. He knew it happened, but it was always lost in the trauma of finding himself a new man, with new wants, needs, likes, and desires. But he was fairly certain, as much as he could be in this moment, that the shed from the last day of Gallifrey was fairly new.

He stumbled up to it, his boots scraping in the dust, pushing open the rickety panels that could be called a door only in theory. The inside was empty, save for a single box right in the middle of the floor. He knew that box well, had dreamed of it. To an outsider, it looked pretty enough, all cogs and gears, brass fittings and steel. It had lacked a big, red button, though. He wished it had one of those. Instead, it was just a box, quiescent, sitting amongst the dried straw and dirt, almost as if it had been forgotten. Maybe he just wished it had been forgotten.

"You can't keep running away from it forever." Her voice was lower than it had been a moment ago, less girlish, almost growling behind him. He flipped around to find her standing with her back to the door, that beloved smirk laughing at him, taunting.

"Rose," he breathed, reaching for her, but stopping, confused. "What are you doing here?"

"It's your hallucination. You tell me?" She shrugged beneath the torn, white rags she wore, the fabric looking very much like Gallifreyan homespun. How did she get dressed like that?

"I don't know," he admitted, fragments of things scraping their way to his consciousness, partial dreams from a life he had tried so hard to forget. "I remember this place."

"I know." She was sad, slipping past him, eyeing the tattered and ruined remains of the hovel with a grieved expression. Her hair, a glorious tangle of gold, shined in the dim light filtering from the hot suns outside.

"How do you know about it?" Why did this feel so familiar, this scene?

"I was here," she replied, not looking at him, perhaps in answer to both the spoken and unspoken question. The Doctor scoffed, even more baffled, scrubbing his face hard at this.

"Rose, you couldn't have been here, because this place was before I met you."

"Yeah," she hummed, turning to face him, that tongue caught in her teeth again. "But what is that phrase you were always saying? It's all wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff?"

"I never said anything of the sort. That's next to gibberish," he coughed, outraged that she would think a great Time Lord like him would somehow forget how to speak the language.

"Oh so you never came first in 'jiggery-pokery', then?" She was outright laughing at him now. "But you did say it, or will say it. Bother, don't have the right tenses for these verbs."

"Will say it? Rose…"

"You've seen me here, before, Doctor," she insisted, her voice dropping to a low rumble as her eyes flashed gold.

And then he knew. And he remembered.

"The Bad Wolf." If he had been breathing, he'd have stopped by now. "You are the Bad Wolf."

"Hello," she waved, her long, ragged sleeved catching on her thumb.

"When...how…" His already dying mind swirled, trying to grasp at straws.

"Does it matter?"

"But I took it out!"

"Yes," she admitted, suddenly so sad, so compassionate, so grateful. She glided across the dust and debris to where he stood, reaching a hand up to his cheek. "My Doctor. I've wanted to keep you safe. That's all I've ever wanted to do."

"I don't understand." He felt ashamed saying it out loud.

"Nor should you." She smiled softly, Rose's smile, warm and caring. "I created myself. You didn't create me, Time Lord."

"What are you?" That was all he could manage, learning into her warm, familiar touch.

"I am everything you saw so long ago when you stared into that Untempered Schism." In her voice he thought he could hear the howl and rush of the winds of time that whipped and churned the Vortex. "I am a golden goddess, sent to end a war that should never have begun in the first place. I am a shop girl from London, who longed to be so much more than what this universe had given her. I'm a young woman who loved you enough to stare into the the heart of the TARDIS, to take on that which she couldn't, all to save your life."

Tears, molten and blinding, filled his eyes. "You were here before. You are the Moment."

"I am." Her smile, Rose's smile, stretched from ear to ear, as brilliant as time itself. "I exist because of you, Doctor. Because you need me. And because I need you."

"I don't understand," he admitted, knowing it was pointless as he wouldn't remember a thing soon enough. "I came here, I used you, I made this world burn and everyone and everything on it died."

"Did you?" Rose, the Bad Wolf, the Moment glanced pointedly towards one of the slats in the walls. "Looks pretty safe from where I'm standing."

"Gallifrey is gone," he wept, his voice ringing in the space, making the girl/woman/entity jump. Her eyes, Rose's eyes, went impossibly wide.

"So much anger, Doctor." She shook her golden head. "And for no purpose. Gallifrey stands."

"Then why can't I…"

"Because you hid it," she replied simply. "You had to. And for now it must remain so. Remember?"

He did. As if coming from a dream, he remembered. As an old man, wearing this same jacket even, standing in this shed. Of a choice he had to make, and an impossible girl named Clara, who wended her way throughout his life, begging him not to burn everything he loved. And a woman, a goddess, a golden haired apparition, who had showed him what he needed to see in order to prevent that from happening."

"Rose! It was Rose." It finally made all a weird sense now.

"Yes." She nodded her head, solemn as she stood before him. "It was me, Doctor. I am she, and she is me and we are all together." She brought her hands together in a clap, as in rhythm to the Beatles song. "I am Rose Tyler. She is the Bad Wolf. And we are the Moment. She exists because I exist, and we exist because that exists."

She nodded towards the box in the middle of the room. "It was the only way available to save Gallifrey. The Time War ends, Doctor, because I did what I had to. I did convince you to hide Gallifrey, to save it. I had to make sure you survived on the game station because I need your help in the future when you hide it in your past. You, Doctor, are the key. You had to be the one to make it all happen."

"None of this makes sense," he whinged, mildly petulant, desperately trying to understand. It only served to make her snort at him.

"Not everything in this universe is there for you to pick apart." She shook her head mockingly at him, her face softening. "You need know only this. She loves you, I love you, we all do. That is why. So many love you, Doctor, so many you've touched. At least in this, for once, I got to save you."

Her words burned as he absorbed them with a fire that could be his regeneration, could be the universe smacking him upside the head. "Rose...I won't get to say it looking and thinking like this, not in a moment. But...I love you."

She regarded him gravely for a long pause before a grin split her face in two. "Quite right, too. And you don't know how long I wait to hear that, Doctor. Three little words! So hard to say?"

"Well, it's not exactly easy for me!"

He couldn't continue his protest, for she had thrown herself at him, hard, little hands grabbing the lapels of his leather jacket, digging into his jumper, pulling him down to her lips. Like before they tasted of her lippy and Time, like cloves, aged wine, cinnamon, and something that was distinctly Rose. When he pulled away he stared at her, dazed.

"I won't remember any of this in a moment, will I? Not even about Gallifrey?"

"Not a bit," she replied, looking both amused and sad by the notion. "And you will be someone else soon."

"Will I like him?"

"I don't know about that," she hedged. She clearly wasn't going to give anything away.

"Then at least answer me this. Will you be there?"

"Always," she breathed, a touch sadly. "Just not always the way you may want me."

Before he could ask her what she meant by that, she shook him by his jacket, lightly but urgently. "Remember, I saw all that was, all that is, all that could be. Remember that, Doctor, when things look their bleakest, when you despair. Remember, I want you safe. And when you have to face yourself and answer for that conversation we never finished, know that it is my gift to you, my Doctor."

It was all madness and puzzling, and he knew he wouldn't understand yet but he couldn't help himself asking. "What is it?"

She smirked at him, cheekiness and play. "It is the one adventure you've never had, Doctor. It's that moment, standing on a street corner at two in the morning, waiting on a cab with someone, and seeing where it ends up. Just an ordinary, everyday sort of adventure."

He couldn't formulate a proper reply. He wanted to, to hold this moment forever, but he could already feel the pulsing strain in his chest of first one, then the other heart, pumping blood and energy through him as someone new emerged. All he could manage was a simple, "thank you."

"Always, my Doctor." Rose...the Bad Wolf murmured, leaning in on tip toes, pressing feather light lips to his.

With the next beat of his heart, he was gone. Well, not really gone, just not that him anymore. He was a different him, a new him, a perhaps better him? Better looking him, maybe? A Rose suitable him? Well, that was different, a him for a companion, he hadn't done that before, and...Rose! What had he been saying to her? It was on the tip of his tongue, something...he'd been talking about something they were going to do together, involving a cab?

"Hello," he startled in surprise, shaking his head. A deep breath, the first with these lungs, this chest.

"Okay!" He did a mental checklist of himself. Two hands, two feet, still male, and now taller...and his mouth was different. He ran his tongue through it, over his teeth, the strangeness of it.

"New teeth. That's weird." His accent changed...again. Ah well, something new, should be fun. What had he been saying just a moment ago?"

"So where was I?" He glanced at Rose, who stared back at him in shock and horror. "Oh, that's right! Barcelona!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, all, for reading Nine's adventures with Rose. I loved getting into his head. There isn't a sequel, per se, though I've had it sort of half-heartedly bouncing around for a bit. However, there are a couple of follow ups that could be connected if you wish. So keep an eye on more Doctor Who fic from me and feel free to read all my other stories (especially X-files).


End file.
